Author's notes/Introduction:

(Warning: both these notes and the story itself contain massive spoilers for the ending of Steins Gate. I would highly recommend someone not having finished the game or at least the anime to do that first!)

With that out of the way, welcome everyone, to what I suppose is my take on a 'what now?' story, taking place immediately after Okabe and Kurisu find each other again at the very end of Steins Gate. Inspiration for it came mainly from some major realism and plot hole problems I had with that ending, or the 'true ending' as the visual novel calls it. Thus, aside from entertainment, one of the goals of this story is to touch on those issues and try to fix them. I'll try to make it all as realistic and as human as possible to best emulate the source material. For more details, please see the author's notes at the bottom of the chapter.

I'll be using the Visual Novel as the baseline, but some unique events in the Anime are referenced here and there because they were too awesome or fit too well for me to not include them. Someone who has only seen the anime should still be able to follow the story just fine (with one exception, maybe. To preface this, no, Kurisu is not joking when she says certain things later in this first chapter, that's actually what Okabe does and says in the VN during operation Skuld).

The second major reason for writing this is that I wanted a more longer and more satisfying epilogue/more closure, hence the revised title. There aren't that many fanfics out there that go for this either, and I wanted to add a hopefully good one to the collection.

Well, that's enough of an intro, let's get into the story!

Disclaimer: I don't own Steins;Gate.

Added note: a progress report for the next chapter has been added to the author's notes at the bottom and will be updated regularly.

He said he'd tell her everything.

He was lying.

Her more sane self from two months ago would have probably walked out long ago.

But, unfortunately, she was a different person now.

Time travel? Worldlines? Attractor fields? A time machine created somehow from an accidental crossing between a microwave and a phone and later her knowledge of memories? A direct internet connection from a random apartment to a research institute halfway across the world, which possessed secret black hole technology that had been hidden from the world for years? Technology which a group of teenagers had then somehow been able to use to compress memory data enough to be able to send it directly to the past? A CRT TV feeding electrons into the transfer as a makeshift lifter which would require exact wave specifics to function from an infinite number of possibilities, AND that TV happened to be present in the exact same building? AND this guy claiming to have an unexplained superpower that let him see across the timelines when no one else was able to, which would conveniently also be the only thing that gave relevance to it all, since no one would remember anything except him?

It sounded like something from a hardcore chuunibyou's fantasies.

The chances of all of this accidentally occurring were almost infinitesimally small. The old her would have attacked it without any hesitation. She would have broken the time travel story apart, both for her father's lost reputation and her own sanity.

…Part of her hated herself for that instinctive desire of still defending her father or his reputation, despite everything that had happened. It was a sign of weakness and overdependency she had to lose.

Kurisu put the thought away for now.

She kept listening because this man had saved her life. For that, she could at least temporarily indulge him. She asked polite questions as he went on and on about the workings of this phonewave thing, how that had come to be, how they'd eventually improved it to a timeleap machine, and so forth.

Unfortunately, it was dragging on and wearing on her patience. Any information on what she really wanted, an explanation for everything surrounding the murder attempt on her, was still nowhere in sight. Should she interrupt him? Ask for the most relevant answers right away? It had been weeks of fruitless searching and he was now right in front of her!

She gripped the lab member badge in her pocket. It kept her hand from shaking. It was just another coping mechanism to deal with her nerves, now on an all-time high from finally finding her 'savior', if that term was correct. She'd consequently allowed him to lead her away from the crowded street, certain that she'd get the answers, that her brain would go back to normal and most of all that the world would somehow make sense again.

…but then he'd led her to a maid café and her hopes had started to falter. And after meeting the strange pink haired girl dressed up as a cat, who'd led them to this office, assuring them that they wouldn't be disturbed because 'the manager worked for her anyway,' the world made even less sense. And if there was something she hated as a scientist, it was something not making sense. That meant that there were answers out there that had yet to be discovered, and questions to find them that hadn't been formulated yet.

Thus, Kurisu couldn't help but wonder why the girl would be working as a maid in a maid café if it were actually true. Then again, no one had thrown them out yet either, even though they'd been in here for well over an hour now. The girl had seemed so sure, too… so was it actually true or just some sort of prank or delusion?

The pink-haired maid was either a lot more than she appeared to be or she was completely insane. Or, you know, both.

Realizing that wasn't the most pressing issue, she again tried to focus on the young man before her.

Their eyes met.

And there it was again. The briefest of initial hesitations on his part, followed by an attempt to continue anyway. But his speech pattern invariably slowed down the longer they made eye contact and finally broke down somewhere mid-sentence. It had gotten worse the longer this conversation had gone on. He looked away awkwardly. If she didn't know any better she'd say there was a lot of sadness in his features as he did.

Sadly, that was still a more than she could say for herself, as her own emotions were nothing short of a complete mess.

Why was looking at him so difficult? There was an impulsive desire to look away from his tentative gaze. A fear. A deep uncertainty. But also mixed with happiness, a feeling of hope. A certain nervousness. But above all, an almost desperate need for something. A confirmation of sort, she somehow knew. But of what? No matter how hard she dug through her hippocampus, the answers kept evading her.

What were these feelings she felt? Was it attraction? The endless angst that girls of her age supposedly felt for their crushes and then obsessed on and on about it instead of doing anything productive? It wasn't like she'd know, spending most of her time in a lab either collecting or analyzing data.

Sure, she'd watched a lot of anime and could understand why certain characters were attracted to each other and were the definite one true pairings of their respective universes - not that she'd ever admit either of those. But to actually have those kinds of feelings herself, in reality, for a real person, out of pretty much nowhere…

It was so out of character for her.

It was also such an absolute longshot from when she'd met him. The guy had legitimately thought she'd been an assassin from some strange organization and had relayed that information into a phone that wasn't even on. That had been with zero provocation from her end. To fall for someone like that… if that were true, part of her was tempted to kill herself.

"That was before he saved our life," her Frontal Lobe reasoned.

"Then if this is some kind of rescue romance trope we're trapped in, why do I feel like breaking down time I look at him? Aren't we supposed to be happier and less emo?" her Limbic System countered, confused.

"Beats me," Frontal Lobe admitted, shrugging. "Emotions are mostly your thing. And it's not like we regularly get almost-murdered. I'm perfectly happy we're unable to cross-reference mental states. Now could you please get on with it? Thank him if you're still set on that and lose him ASAP, so we leave this mess behind and finally pull ourselves together. Personally, I can't wait to get back to the safety and comfort of a lab behind lots of high-security locks."

She shook her head. Part of her wanted that too, but getting a grip had proven a lot easier said than done. She'd been this way ever since her own father attempted to kill her two months ago. Maybe these feelings for Okabe Rintaro were just anxiety symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, resurfacing from being exposed to a stimulus related to that attack, in this case he himself, mixed with some faint hope that she could find closure.

A plausible hypothesis, but it didn't entirely fit. She was fairly sure that she should have been much more panicked or afraid if that were the case. The strange bit of happiness didn't quite fit, nor the overwhelming sense of loss, which had only grown stronger in time.

As she thought it, she could imagine Frontal Lobe continuously faceplanting itself against the wall of her cranial cavity, protected only from the bone by the fibrous membrane of the Dura Mater. 'Not this again,' it groaned. 'For the last time, let's look at this rationally. You feel we lost 'something important'. So… something like… oh, I don't know, forever losing the bond with dad, which was all we've ever worked for!? How can that possibly not be enough of an explanation!?'

'It just… feels like it's something else,' the structures forming her Limbic System replied. 'And it's not like there are no problems with your explanation, either. What about the visions?'

'Look at these idiots…' the prior brain structure scoffed. "Is that really the best you have? Well then, brace yourselves for this incredibly obvious hypothesis: we are experiencing auditory and visual hallucinations due to psychosis caused by severe mental trauma. For that matter, we ourselves could be auditory hallucinations.'

Kurisu had to concede the point. She could well be psychotic. It fit all too well with the sensation of losing her mind and nothing she'd done had managed to fix it. Not talking to the police psychiatrist, not EMDR therapy nor visiting the Radi-kan building as exposure in vivo therapy.

The only thing she hadn't tried yet were antipsychotic drugs, but then again, she hadn't told anyone about the hallucinations either. She wasn't exactly sure why; it was more of a vague feeling that if she'd write the hallucinations off as being false, if she took away those fragments of potential leads, that she'd give up that undefined something she felt she'd lost, even if that made absolutely zero logical sense. Plus, the prideful part of her found it hard to accept even potentially having such a diagnosis and found the prospect of having to take heavy medication to get though it both humiliating and horrifying. Thus, not telling the psychiatrist everything had been somewhat easy.

Dealing with her mother or her supervisor had been a lot harder. With them, it wasn't so much as not telling them about the hallucinations as it had been about straight up lying about how things were going. She knew that if either of them knew how bad all of this had really messed her up, they'd force her to leave, either by withdrawing the funding that allowed her to stay in the hotel or by refusing her request for yet another week of 'vacation extension'.

So she lied, often took their phone calls without the vidphone option so they couldn't see her face or the state of the room, did her absolute best to keep her voice straight and sent them some pictures of famous tourist attractions in the area, all to keep up the illusion that she was having a great time. It had apparently worked, though she suspected only because her mom hated her dad so much that she really wanted to believe he hadn't been able to inflict any severe or lasting damage on their daughter.

And with the psychiatrist, her mother and her supervisor out of the way, that left… absolutely no one for her to confide in. That realization somehow made the undefined feeling of loss hurt even more.

It conjured memories of things best left forgotten. Of a cold and dark hotel room and a betrayed teenage girl trying to cope with severe mental trauma with nothing more than a Upa pillow for direct company.

The urge to cry was rapidly resurfacing.

Okabe Rintaro, or Hououin Kyouma, or whatever the man's name in front of her was, hesitantly continued his monologue. She took the opportunity to take in his visage, grasping at any distraction that allowed her to keep her composure.

He was at least decently handsome, there was no real way around it. He was tall, dark and had a certain rugged charm about him. His almost but not entirely clean shaven beard and wildish black haircut combined with his lab coat, overly long belt and beige pants to give him somewhat of an actual mad scientist look. He made it work surprisingly well.

She tried to imagine him in some other outfit, strictly for scientific purposes. Something like… a black suit. And a red tie. She nodded approvingly. Yes, definitely a red tie. And maybe they could keep the lab coat, too?

Hmmm. Yup!

Frontal Lobe sweatdropped. 'Um, brain to thought processes, hello? What the HELL is happening? We were in a very dark place just ten seconds ago and now we're straight up fantasizing about dressing him up? This distraction is WAY too effective!'

'Shush, we're working,' the chorus of active thought processes replied. 'This lab-suit hybrid version is a DEFINITE 'nine out of ten would-do'!'

Kurisu whirled away from him much too quickly to escape notice, immediately took a large spoon of her now-cold salt-flavored ramen noodles, promptly choked on it and spilled almost all of it over the table.

It was the smoothest cover-up in the history of cover-ups.

She'd just have to keep coughing, wait out his flabbergasted stare and trust her Frontal Lobe to get things back under control so she could forget about all these inappropriate images and feelings. After all, her brain had never let her down before. Mostly.

She could feel her Frontal Lobe critically analyzing the visual data passed on to it by the occipital lobe and the connecting neurons, doubtlessly reaching the conclusion that he was way overhyped.

'…Why isn't he a 'ten out of ten'?' the supposed general manager of her brain's functions went on asking, unsure.

Kurisu froze. Treason! Treason everywhere!

'He's a bit scrawny for his size,' a random thought process replied. 'Still hot in the proper outfit though.'

'Why does that scrawny bit sound so ironic to me?' a second one wondered.

'Who cares? What really matters is what lies beneath that shirt!' another one unhelpfully supplied.

This had to stop.

'Guys! I'd rather be emo than listen to speculation on his abs!' she furiously thought, trying her very best not to let her imagination get the better of her.

'We didn't say anything about abs?' numerous thought processes pointed out.

'Eh? But… No, I mean, what else is beneath his cloth- gah! Just, please drop it, okay? Please?' she begged.

'Suit yourself. Actually, speaking of suits…'

She facepalmed, groaning in frustration. Okabe watched her as she did, awkwardly scratching his head. He obviously had no idea what was going on. Good thing, too. This line of thought should never see the light of day.

'Please don't nightingale over him too hard?' Kurisu tried, admitting partial defeat. 'The jury is still out on whether he's a creepy psychotic stalker or not.'

'If you really believed that, would you be sitting here in a closed off office with him, just the two of you?'

'I wouldn't, which is why I'm so worried! I'm really confused by the amount of trust we seem to give him, considering we know almost nothing about the guy. I'm telling you, something is really off here. This isn't natural!'

'Sure, sure! Now what about a blue suit to go with the red tie?'

A deeply hidden and apparently not quite repressible part of her noted that the blue suit version of him resembled Phoenix Wright from the ace attorney series, only with more realistic hair and hazel-colored eyes. That gave him some extra cuteness points. Wait… speaking of said lawyer, there was something-

'Objection!'

The world shifted. Waves upon waves of Déjà-vu constricted her vision.

She was in a conference hall. Her name was already being introduced by the host. Outwardly she tried her best at appearing calm.

Inwardly she was sweating, neurotically going over all her notes one more time, planning out each and every word in advance.

All she had to do was hold a lecture, she told herself. That was all. It would last thirty minutes, tops. People did this all the time all over the world. She just had to represent her department's and consequently entire university's prestigious name to a hall filled with men and women who were all older than her, some at least twice her age, and with many more years of scientific experience each. And all this on a complex theoretical subject like time travel, no less, which wasn't even her own field of expertise.

No biggie!

What could possibly go wrong? At best she'd merely do as was expected of her. At worst she'd make a complete fool of both herself and her university and forever prove the critics of her thesis right in that she was just an overhyped tool of her department.

Ok… maybe think about something more positive. Like… how she'd done this before?

Oh wait, she had no prior experience whatsoever.

Well, at least she hadn't come all the way from America specifically for this, then?

Oops, that was EXACTLY why she was here, minus the bit with her father.

'This isn't helping,' she told herself as she dragged her feet over there. Why couldn't anyone else have done this instead of her!?

The host handed her the microphone. She fumbled with the standard, then tested it, hoping against hope that some catastrophic technical issue would arise that gave her just a little bit more time to get ready.

It worked perfectly, of course. Just her luck.

The first lines came out stumbling, uncertain. She passed herself off as inexperienced, trying to get a bit of goodwill from the crowd.

It worked somewhat and she quickly shifted to the actual subject. At least they were underway now; all she had to do was go through the carefully planned slides one by one, provide the approved and memorized commentary and-

"Objection!"

She froze. One man stood at the back of the hall, dramatically pointing at her and loudly challenging her claim before the first minute had even passed.

It was a shock when she recognized the speaker. It was him, Hououin Kyouma, or whatever the delusional pervert she'd just met called himself. It apparently wasn't enough that he'd groped her in public under the ridiculous excuse of being surprised at seeing her alive, in plain view of at least some of the other attendees here, no less! No, of course it wouldn't be. He'd also wanted to ruin the presentation itself, huh?

Seething rage took hold. It helped her focus and grounded her in the here and now, pushing all doubts and other considerations aside. She was going to destroy him!

She took all that anger and very, very carefully ordered all her thoughts into battle formations. All the information on all eleven prevalent theories on time travel. All the possible counterarguments to it being implausible. The responses to all the counterarguments. ALL OF IT, so that no matter what he said, no matter what side of the argument he'd be on, she'd be ready.

A desperate remnant of self-control told her the safer and more professional option would be to have security remove him. To just get on with the lecture as planned.

No way. It was personal now! She was going to push this as hard as she possibly could, given the circumstances. She'd keep dragging him into this 'lecture', and Every. Single. Example. she'd use was going to include him suffering some scientifically revelant yet horrific and exceptionally lethal fate, such as jumping into a black hole.

She inwardly smirked evilly and narrowed her eyes, gesturing the security guard back.

"Fine then, let's change the format to a discussion."

Over the remainder of the thirty minutes, Hououin Kyouma got completely owned.

She didn't hesitate even once; it was pure, unadulterated, scientifically-valid slaughter.

Revenge had never tasted sweeter.

Kurisu blinked, forcing herself back to the here and now.

The visions didn't scare her as much as it initially had. This was actually a pleasant one compared to the ones that usually came. But that wasn't the important part – the important part was how vivid this one had been. It was crystal clear and actually had sound to go with it, much better than the usual vague or muted ones.

That lecture, she had cancelled it after the attack on her. But that just now, that had been way too much like an actual memory, as if it actually had happened. It also didn't quite match Okabe's story.

'Yeah, so what was that he told us again about how we met in the supposed other worldline? 'We had a pleasant conversation about time travel theories'?' Limbic system scoffed, temporarily distracted from her previous conundrum. 'Pleasant, my ass!'

'Okay, so his looks… and possible abs aside… maybe we should go with the earlier plan, you know, the contingency in case we somehow became attracted to him from that to… whatever this is? I'm sure I saw a sufficiently high building to jump off of over there,' her Ego pointed out.

"Not funny, and not helping!" Kurisu herself interjected. "It's bad enough that parts of my brain are talking to each other without parts of my psyche joining in, too!"

"Hmmm? What was that?"

Okabe Rintaro stared at her.

Kurisu facepalmed. That happened a lot around this guy. "Tell me I didn't say that out loud."

"O…kay? You didn't say that out loud, Christina."

"That's not my name!"

Rather than replying, Okabe was content to let the silence stretch itself, clearly waiting for something to happen. He somehow had the nerve to grin, of all things.

The image of Hououin Kyouma from the memory overlapped with Okabe Rintaro sitting in front of her. It was definitely the same man.

This guy.

A lingering sentiment of fury cut through all confusing thoughts and feelings of pain. If nothing else made sense, she could use anger. She understood anger. And she knew she was being lied to. She took a deep breath and channeled said emotion from the earlier memory. This was as good a time of any to start before the awkwardness routine rebooted itself.

If he wanted to purposefully keep twisting the truth, if it could even be that, that was fine.

If he wanted to keep ignoring the huge invisible elephant in the room between them, that was fine.

She'd just drag the answers out of him, right now.

"Okabe Rintaro, what are you hiding? Why is it so hard for you to talk about me?" she continued, crossing her arms.

His smirk faded. He even had the decency to look taken aback. "What do you mean? I told you already – you were a fellow lab member, my assistant actually. You worked with us from the start. Your safety was my-"

"First, I'm not your assistant! I know I'd never accept becoming an assistant of someone with no scientific credibility at all."

He flinched. "Ouch."

"Secondly, that answer had no relevance to my question whatsoever," she pressed. "It's incredibly obvious misdirection!"

There was an ever so slight hesitation as he grabbed for the Dr. Pepper bottle to his right. It was still empty, just like the previous five times. Just like the rice omelet with giant ketchup letters reading 'Nice catch, Kyouma-san!' still remained untouched after he'd hastily smeared out the words. He was obviously just stalling to calm his nerves.

"Lastly, you're a really bad liar. You don't hesitate about anything in this story except when it's about me. You describe everything very in-depth and colorfully, who everyone was, what they did and why. Everything about it seems well rehearsed, as If you've told it many times. But whenever I come up, or my role in this, you start to falter. You begin breaking eye contact and glancing off. You get nervous. You don't know what to tell me. You keep asking yourself how much you should say. Am I wrong?"

Silence.

"Why, Okabe? What can't you tell me?" she tried again.

"And why aren't we using honorifics when we address each other? Isn't that something reserved for very close friends or family?" Frontal Lobe wondered.

"He's just an infuriating idiot. He doesn't get honorific privileges. Especially not if he can't even say OUR name properly!" Limbic System scoffed.

"…As expected of Christina, my genius assistant," he mumbled.

"Stop adding '-Tina'! And stop dodging the question!"

"…"

Frustrations rose and she became genuinely angry. Angry at not being given what she needed; an answer that was content to stay confined to his hippocampus. He didn't give it and she couldn't reach it. That started a sensation of helplessness which quickly spiraled out of control.

Memories of familiar hands strangling her. Feelings of utter horror, shame, regret and confusion. Memories of a 'savior' vanishing into thin air.

It was abandonment all over again. Twice.

Memories of a police investigation that went nowhere fast. There was barely any time for closure before the visions started. Visions of her actually dying, of being shot, strangled, stabbed or worse. Visions of strange men with guns breaking into her hotel room as she grieved, only to be proven false after she'd already been thrown into their van.

She sought the crowd for cover. Logic told her that if someone else suddenly tried to strangle her in a busy street, there would be bystanders who could help. If someone stabbed her outside, someone could call an ambulance or maybe there would even be a doctor nearby. If strange men with guns actually came for her, at least it'd be easier to run and lose them, a lot less dangerous than jumping out the window. There was also more cover there, both living and non-living, as cruel as it was to think like that.

She just wanted to survive.

But outside the images were also different, sometimes worse in a way. Because then he sometimes walked next to her. He was talking to her, hands in his pockets, unconcerned with everything having gone to hell. His cocky grin told her he knew the answers, the way out. But she could never make out what he was saying. And then he was suddenly gone, leaving only a vague feeling that she could find him if she just walked that one more square. That she would find him if she just stayed one more day. That she needed to find him again at all costs.

But she never did. Week after week he remained missing. Week after week the strangest things could draw out the lifelike visions, making her doubt what was real and what wasn't. Week after week she hid those from everyone, afraid they'd think she'd gone insane. And throughout all of it, there was that stupid, all-consuming feeling of loss that made her want to break down. She'd forgotten something, but what? Why was it so important?

And then there was the need for the answer to that one specific question…

He could tell her. He could tell her everything, as he'd promised.

But he was lying.

She couldn't take it anymore.

"Okabe. Look at me. If you don't tell me right now what is really going on, with me AND between us, I'm leaving."

Hazel eyes met hers directly. This time there was no awkwardness, it was instead replaced with pure shock. "What? I'd have thought that you, as a scientist, would want all the available data first, if only for perspective!"

Still no straight answer.

She stood up. Weeks of buried and repressed emotions were surfacing. "I'm sorry, Okabe. Right now I don't want to know how horrible everything you went through was. If it's true, then I'm sorry, I really am. But I want answers about myself first. I want to know why I can't look at you. Why I feel this loss when I see you. Why do I want to cry over just seeing a stranger? Why doesn't it go away? Why do these strange visions about you keep messing me up? I don't even know you. I don't! So why can't I be at peace anymore!?"

"I-" He also stood up. She immediately took a step back towards the door.

"Did you touch me?" She whispered.

Perhaps the most important question. It was also a last chance.

He froze. "What?"

"After you turned on me. When… my father attacked me. You used your stungun when I tried to help you. You left me on the floor. After that… did you- did you touch me?"

"Of course I didn't!" he shouted, shaking himself out of it. "What kind of person do you think I am!?"

A last chance not taken. Some part of her wasn't surprised.

But it still broke her. There was no stopping the tears this time.

"Liar! Just… stop lying to me! It hurts!"

He was confused. That seemed genuine, at least, so much so that it halted his attempt to get around the table to where she was. "But… But I didn't-!"

She didn't want to hear it. That probably wasn't fair but it hadn't been fair for her, either. "Do you know what it was like for me, Okabe? From my perspective? I'll tell you honestly! My father tried to kill. My own father. Just like that. We hadn't spoken in seven years. He lost faith in himself because I was too smart and that ruined his scientific career in the end. I was eleven but I knew it was because of me. And then he left us."

Okabe didn't reply; he just observed her silently.

"Everything I did since then, I did in hopes of somewhere, sometime reconciling with him. I did everything I could for it. I thought that maybe if I gathered enough scientific acclaim, I could somehow help him and that we'd be a family again. That we could discuss his theories again on the couch, smiling, just the two of us. So I denied everything to myself other than the study and the research. I hid everything that might damage my reputation, all my hobbies, all my other interests, all of it! And then, after seven years, I thought I finally had something that could do it. But then… But then…!"

She drew a shaky breath. "Did you know the brain needs so much oxygen that it only takes ten seconds to lose consciousness if there's a lack of it? And how useless that information was for me when I got strangled!? My vision faded but I saw a knife. I knew I was about to die and all I could ask myself was: "Why, papa? Didn't I do enough?"

"Kurisu-" his arm hesitantly reached forward.

She took another step back. "It… it wasn't just the fear of dying. My dream had been crushed! I felt everything I'd ever done, everything I'd ever built up to was for nothing. I can't even describe how that broke me!"

"I-"

"But then it got worse. Suddenly you showed up, cackling madly about things I still can't understand. Then you got stabbed and I ran there to help you. But then you used that… stun gun thing on me and my muscles explode in agony. Throughout it all I could still hear you say you're going to rape me and then kill both me AND my dad. And then my dad ran, leaving me on the floor with a madman with a knife and a stungun."

She could still see his eyes widen despite the veil of tears. "You were conscious!?," he cried, "but that can't be! Operation Skuld was a complete success!"

"'Y- You were conscious?' 'A complete success?' Really? Is that all you have to say?" she chuckled humorlessly. "I don't even…"

"But… then why didn't you run?"

"Because I was too scared to do anything, you idiot!" she cried. "I was too numb from shock! All my muscles still hurt from the spasms. But I thought maybe if I played dead, that I'd have a chance to surprise you. That maybe this whackjob watched too much Hollywood and didn't know that stun guns and tasers don't actually knock people unconscious! You were injured so maybe I'd have a chance to get away."

"I couldn't even have that, of course!" she added sarcastically. "Because then this woman enters. She effortlessly picks me up and puts me down in what can only be a pool of your blood. The scent of it makes me sick. It drenches my clothes. And when she does, my hand brushes something metallic. I know it's a gun. I don't even hear what you're both saying anymore. I know that the next second this unknown woman is going to shoot me and that this man is maybe going to rape my corpse afterwards and I still can't move! I'm in pain, you're both armed with lethal weapons and this woman is too strong. It was hopeless."

She knew she was venting, but there was only so long she could keep it to herself. "I- I felt abandoned by the world. I had nightmares about it, about this woman actually shooting me. Through the head, through the heart, anywhere. I couldn't let go of this strange idea that she hated me even though I had no idea who she was. And then there were these visions… no, actual sensations of you or my dad stabbing me and where I slowly bleed out on either you or the floor instead."

Okabe suddenly stumbled back as if he'd been struck in the face. "I… I'm sorry," he whispered. "I only wanted to scare him away. You weren't supposed to hear or feel that. I thought… "

He didn't, or maybe couldn't finish his sentence. He looked and sounded broken, defeated. A very faint image of a bridge formed around him. Or was it a walkway? Did it even matter? Just what was going on with her brain!?

She wiped her tears with her sleeve, blinking the vision away. "But… you know? just then, when I'd given up, I felt it."

He looked up hesitantly. He clearly had no idea. He was lost.

Again, the image flickering over the office. It was definitely a walkway. Was it significant? If so, why?

"It was a tender touch from a shaking hand," she explained. "You stroked my hair, didn't you? It calmed me down enough to register what was happening. And then I started to doubt. You were bleeding out and gasping for breath, possibly dying, but still cared enough to say goodbye. You were a completely different person. I didn't understand what you meant by 'three weeks not coming back', but I could hear it - the pain in your voice, the regret. It's the same things I feel now when I look at you. You told me that you wanted me to live and then you vanished."

Still no answer from him. What was going on in his mind? Why wasn't he responding? Part of her was irritated, even angry that she was telling him everything straight, despite the shame, despite her own trauma, and that he apparently couldn't be bothered to do the same. It made her want to lash out, shake him by his coat or whatever it took to rouse him from his stupor, to force him to react. He wasn't going to get out of this by hiding in some shell, not after what he'd put her through!

But even though it should have been easy to scold him, to press him even harder….

"I… held on to that idea," she continued, "that even if I'd spent my life chasing some fools errant, wasting it, that someone other than my mom and my sempai back home still cared for me. Enough to even risk his life for it, even. That possibility that you were actually, legitimately there to help me, even if I didn't understand anything about the way you did it. That there was a valid reason I'd had to experience all that horror. That possibility, no, that one moment of affection is what kept me sane these last two months."

She looked away. "But now that you're here… now that you're right in front of me, you say you didn't. Why can't you admit it?"

'Say it. Please say it. I need to hear it… do you remember?'

'Remember what? I don't understand! Just run!'

"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry…" he repeated.

She slowly closed her eyes. Not that. Whatever faint hope there had been a moment ago drained away. "Why, Okabe!? Do you regret it!? Are you disappointed I'm not broken enough yet? Is all this just some kind of sick psychological game to you!?"

He lifted his face from his hands. Their eyes met again. She didn't recognize the emotion. He opened his mouth to say something.

And closed it.

Something snapped inside of her and she ran.

But he was faster.

"Let go!" she cried, trying to pull her arm from his grip. She tried to suppress the immediate surge of panic that came with being reminded of the last time someone had grabbed her forcefully.

Okabe shook his head. "I can't."

"I'll scream!"

"Will it make you feel better?"

"If it gets you arrested!"

He chuckled humorlessly. "I probably deserve worse. If it helps you recover, then do it. I'll confess to whatever you say. Maybe that's the price of Steins Gate."

His grip relaxed. She stopped struggling and took one last, long look at him. He seemed earnest. Something told her that he wouldn't stop her, that he'd wait to be arrested and keep his word, even. She'd take the plane back to America the next day and he'd be out of her life forever.

All it would take was one scream for help.

Just one.

Hazel eyes filled with warmth and sadness, patiently waiting on her answer.

"I… I can't do it," she muttered. "Why? Why can't I? And why am I crying? It… It's this feeling again. I should have left the country weeks ago. I shouldn't trust you. I shouldn't even like you. I shouldn't have gone with you to this place by myself. It's stupid. It's illogical! It's…"

His arms settled on her shoulders, gently pulling her closer.

"It's fine, Kurisu. You don't have to explain it."

She could have struggled, could have pushed him away, could and should have ran, even.

But she was tired - tired of being tormented over things she didn't completely understand, and tired of chasing after something she had no idea of what it really was.

"Then tell me. Why do I trust you?" she had to ask. "Why do you look at me with those sad eyes? I… don't want to be pitied. I don't!"

"Because…"

His arms closed around her. They were warm, strong arms, silently promising protection.

And for the very first time in two long months, she felt safe. Completely safe, even. Compared to that, everything else suddenly seemed trivial, worries for a different place and time. All she wanted at that moment was have him hold her and savor this alien feeling for as long as she possibly could.

And he let her.

The sheer relief of it was crushing. She felt as if a dam of long pent-up and held-back emotions was about to break and that it was finally all right to let it go.

So she cried it out into his chest.

Tears she couldn't shed to Maho or her Mom, because she couldn't worry them.

His shirt was soft. It carried some strange mixture of scents ranging from his musk to her tears to a muffy metallic one. She was surprised to find she was searching it for a hint of microwaved banana, which was so ridiculous she just had to chuckle despite herself. Still, the scents were familiar - familiar enough to continue.

Tears she couldn't shed to the police psychiatrist, because she didn't want to risk losing something important.

He took a deep breath. "Because-"

She could feel him tense, only to falter and hesitate, slightly loosening his grip as he did.

She acted without thinking. Maybe it was just instinct, to prevent losing her protective shell. Maybe it was some remnant cognitive process wanting an answer. Maybe some part of her just wanted to support him in return.

Whatever the reason, she tentatively, ever so cautiously curved her right arm around his back and gently pulled him back to her. It felt like reaching out to him as he sat to the side of a walkway, where no one seemed to care that he looked broken, even desperate. Only this time, she was the broken one.

Stay. Please stay.

There was no real physical strength behind the gesture; she wasn't even sure she'd be able to at this point. But he seemed to understand.

They both moved, gradually melting further into the other's embrace in a way that came and felt far too natural. It made her brain secrete what was probably an embarrassing amount of dopamine and oxytocin. But it made her feel comfortable – comfortable enough to continue.

Tears that she couldn't shed to anyone, because she'd been too stuck being an eleven-year-old girl wondering why her father had stopped coming home.

The pain didn't reach her. With him holding like her this, nothing could touch her.

"Because I love you, Makise Kurisu, and I think that in at least one other worldline, you loved me too."

…Except that, maybe.

It was impossible to not feel nervous. But it was still a conformation of something important, something she'd been wanting to hear for what felt like a very long time. That made her… happy. Nervous, but also happy.

She chuckled through the sobs. "Your timing *sniff* needs work, you idiot…"

"You're probably right," he said, though she could feel his smile as he looked down on her. "If I'd known you were still here, I could have planned something better. Maybe I'd have taken you to a resort on the beach, where we'd have this heartfelt confession and our first kiss in the sunset."

"That's… really romantic," she admitted, smiling.

"Then I promise I'll make it up to you someday. I just… really thought you'd have left Japan. So, I suppose what I'm trying to say is: Thank you for staying, Kurisu, my beloved companion."

"A-Ah," What to say? Where was the Standard Operating Protocol that told her what to do in this situation, faced with breaking down while being hugged by an attractive guy who kept saying mushy stuff that made her knees go weak and her mind completely blank? Surely someone had written a thesis on that topic before! "Um, no problem?" Wait, what? It sure as hell had been a problem! "But… I *sniff* still want an explanation later."

"Of course - wait, 'later'? Not right now? You were pretty insistent a minute ago."

"No. Right now… I just want proof."

"…'Proof'?" Okabe asked, confused.

"These last two months… to stay here… I had to lie a lot, pretending everything was fine," she explained. "I'm not… saying it would be nice to just… not pretend anymore, if only for a while, with someone else. But…"

"I understand," he said, nodding. "You're too strong to ever need anyone's help, and even if you did, you'd never ask for it. So, I'm just going to choose to stay here because I want to. Let's say this is me taking responsibility for my actions."

She didn't answer because she didn't have to. That had sounded like something she'd say or make him do. She felt that he understood her, the way she thought, more than he should probably be able to. That gave her a sense of hope, that maybe there was something more to this time travel story - enough hope to finish it.

And maybe, just maybe, tears because she had regained something, or someone, important to her.

And finally, the wounds began to close.

Progress to next chapters:

Chapter 3: posted.

Chapter 4: 5000 words/10000-ish: What was left of the original chapter 3 before it started its exponential growth.

Chapter 5: Script.

Detailed author's notes:

As I was writing this, I quickly figured out that the first chapter wouldn't be all that happy in nature, more of an angst/hurt/comfort type of chapter with which I have no experience at all in doing. It had to be this way though, since I couldn't touch on two major flaws of the ending and still be realistic otherwise. Plus, it wouldn't be Steins Gate without the drama, right? I still tried to inject as much humor as possible to keep it from being an angstfest. I might have overshot that, actually, but I guess that's up to the readers to decide. And there's a certain irony of ending here for now, which makes this chapter's ending more or less the exact same premise as SG's actual ending/epilogue. Mission failed, right? XD

Well, I guess it's a good thing then that this is only the first of 3 or 4 (long) chapters!

So the first major flaw in the true ending's realism expressed here is Kurisu instantly fainting from being hit by a stun gun. That is straight up Hollywood magic, the same magic that, in example, the protagonist of action movie X uses when he/she sneaks up behind an unsuspecting villain and effortlessly snaps the target's neck with his or her bare hands, upon which the bad guy also dies instantly. In reality, neither of those happen. Tasers use a torrent of electricity to briefly cause painful, forced muscle contractions, effectively paralyzing a target for the duration since they can't move muscles that are kept in the same, contracted state by the electrical current. For a stun gun, it's an even more brief experience. That's all they do. They don't magically cause someone to lose consciousness nor for a prolonged period of time (except, very maybe, if the target had some form of major heart disorder. But let's assume realistically that Kurisu doesn't). This is something the reader or viewer is likely to overlook since they either don't know better and/or want Okabe to succeed at the cost of suspense of disbelief, but I'm calling it for what it is.

The only realistic way for things to happen exactly as they're portrayed in the VN or the anime is if Kurisu is pretending to be unconscious after being hit, presumably from being too afraid. Which, in turn, is completely understandable considering A: her dad just tried to kill her, B: Okabe suddenly attacked her right after that, and C: (in the VN) right after using the stun gun on Kurisu, he said he'd rape her and then kill both her and her dad. While he only says that last one to scare off Nakabachi, Kurisu would have no way of knowing this.

Does this playing dead also explain Kurisu remaining motionless after Okabe leaves, enabling operation Skuld to still work? There's a good chance it would, since it's very possible that she'd be stuck in her 'freeze' response to danger. That, and/or being too flabbergasted to move after what just happened, regardless of how much Okabe's farewell actually calmed her down. Past Okabe is also supposed to arrive on the scene fairly quickly after hearing the scream, after which he immediately runs, so it's not like she has to stay still for very long either.

Secondly, considering how traumatic this attack on her has to be for Kurisu, who literally stated that reconciling with her dad was all she worked for so far, it feels downright strange to me that she's portrayed as smiling in the ending scene of the anime. Sure, it's two months later, but it was both her life's goal that was taken away from her AND a major psychological trauma. Also, she's constantly implied to be very lonely, likely without anyone to help her cope nearby, at least as far as we know. Am I then expected to believe she'd be completely fine that soon following a major life event like that? PTSD patients can struggle with these symptoms for years, even decades in some cases. In the VN, she's instead crying/nearly crying while stumbling through a few lines of thank you towards Okabe. So… is she that happy to see him, or that much of an emotional mess? I used the second explanation when writing this.

That did put me in a very rough spot with characterization as I'd then realistically be stuck with a Kurisu with some more severe anxiety symptoms if not outright Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. You can see Okabe with PTSD-like behavior in Steins Gate 0, but how does a Kurisu with similar symptoms act? Why does she stick around that long despite this and how do the memories of alternative timelines play into it? It's normal Kurisu vs Anxiety vs Reading Steiner and I had some trouble juggling that, but I do kind of like the final version. It would have been much easier to sidestep all of this by writing the scene from Okabe's perspective and taking the chicken's way out, but I wanted to challenge myself. Plus that would have been much more boring, as we've already seen plenty of his thoughts compared to Kurisu's none. Also, don't worry; Kurisu isn't going to remain an emotional wreck for the rest of it. She's fairly strong and may or may not get the chance to return the favor really soon, considering the foreshadowing of Okabe having his own issues.

The idea of having Frontal Lobe and Lymbic System as entities Kurisu talks to came from Cop and Robber, a great persona 5 fanfic written by Icli. In it, Makoto has two entities named Id and Superego (from Freudian psychology) that she talks with to great comedic, sometimes more serious effect. The most direct translation of these to corresponding brain parts/systems (since, you know, it's Kurisu and she'd frame them in a neuroscientific way) were the frontal lobe and the limbic system as respective areas of reasoning and emotion. I wanted to experiment with this in the more lighthearted parts of the story for freshness and to have a few more actors in the scene, considering its length. I'm leaving it to reader interpretation of whether they are a product of psychological trauma or Kurisu's normal state (considering she's supposed to be very lonely, I can see why she'd develop a habit of talking to herself). In this light, they are deliberately absent in flashbacks. I wonder what the reception will be. If it's universally hated, I might remove it from the latter 2 or 3 chapters altogether.

Regarding Okabe's looks, with me being a straight guy and him being an anime character, that's a little hard for me to judge. However, there's a hilarious IBN short of Kurisu being asked to dress Okabe and Daru differently on youtube (an official one, not fanmade) and her reaction to seeing Okabe out of his labcoat pretty much says it all (you should find it easily if you search for it). Also, he's apparently handsome enough for the likes of Faris, Female Luka, Mayuri, Suzuha and Kurisu to all find him at least acceptable. I guess Kurisu's behavior towards Okabe in the story also makes more sense if she was also strongly physically attracted to him aside from just being very lonely, plus there's a good chance that her remnants of memories from the other timelines are influencing her judgment of him.

Also regarding Rintaro, I'm wondering how you as the reader found his characterization? He doesn't get a lot of lines here, so making him seem like himself is a bit harder. Personally I believe the Okabe Rintaro of the very end of Steins Gate has gone through so much growth that he's a fairly mature and respectable person for his age. There's no Hououin Kyouma yet since I don't believe that endgame Okabe Rintaro would use his alter ego under these serious yet not directly dangerous circumstances. On this subject, the reason I kind of dislike the 25th episode of the anime and also the movie to some degree is that they seemingly revert much of his personal growth and turn him back into an idiot (the anime much more so than the movie) until something really serious happens. Well, that, and that I have some difficulty fathoming why he wouldn't just be honest with Kurisu on his feelings, considering all they've been through and all his struggles? I mean, he's already done it once where she accepted and returned his affection, plus he knows that reading steiner also applies to other persons. I get that the writers want to prolong the drama as much as possible, but realistically this makes no sense to me.

On the subject of realism, I should probably add that I'm a physician, not a physicist. The scientific concepts involved with time travel here, I'm just going to accept as they're given, even if it's likely that there are mistakes (the game already takes liberties with the stun gun for instance), since I'd both be unable to detect them and that the rest of story doesn't require touching too much on the science to work. I'm still aware of at least one glaring scientific issue like Luka's miraculous gender change following an intervention on his MOTHER, when only his/her father can influence the actual gender (set x-chromosome from mother vs X or Y chromosome from father). But eh, the author's notes are long enough as they are now.