3:30 PM

"Uh, Okarin, how do you know where to go?" Mayuri asked, peering out from behind the lanky scientist.

"We don't need to," Okabe said decisively. "My assistant should be able to drive us there, if she isn't grumpy as usual," he grumbled, dialing the number in on his phone.

"Hello?"

"It's me, Hououin Kyoma," he said imperiously. "Could please be so kind as to come to the address I proffered in my earlier call?"

"Hououin?... Oh, Okabe. There's no need to call someone 15 feet away from you. Especially not while they're driving."

"It's meters, not- Ah." Okabe hung up quickly, face flushed bright red with embarrassment.

"Did somebody call for a ride?" Kurisu asked sweetly, pulling up to the airport curb.

===S;G===

We Are The 1% (Barrier)

0 - Wish You Were Here (But Now That You Are...)

===S;G===

4:05 PM

"You got a license, Chris-chan?" Mayuri asked. "Wow, I didn't know you were such a good driver!"

"Hmf," Okabe grumbled. "If she really was a good driv-"

Crump.

Kurisu swung the car violently to the side, smacking Okabe's head into the door.

"OW!" Okabe rubbed his sore head. "Assistant, I will have you dis-"

Crump.

"So, how long have you been driving, nya-ssistant?" Faris asked from the back of the car, trying to hold in giggles.

"Only I get to call her that!" Okabe protested.

"Please slam Kyoma into the door again, please," the part-time maid requested, obviously miffed Okabe was interrupting her conversation.

Crump.

"If you keep doing that, my precious brain will be lost to-"

Crump.

Okabe was now too dazed to say anything smartass... for a few minutes.

Kurisu grinned with dark satisfaction. Wow, being evil really is as fun as he says, she thought. Even if I will need to go the panel beaters after this to hammer the Okabe-shaped dents out of my door.

Daru adjusted his sunglasses. "Wait, Makise-shi, why did the sun get so bright... Holy crap that's a truck!"

Everyone screamed... except for Kurisu, who just cheerfully flipped the bird at the driver before swerving the car dangerously for the fourth time that day.

Mayuri nearly lost her hat while Okabe nearly lost his lunch.

4:25 PM

Kurisu slammed the driver door, and announced "We're here," with an air of finality.

Okabe quickly staggered off behind some bushes to throw up. The rest of the ride hadn't been much fun, either, what with Kurisu taking corners at least 20 miles per hour above the speed limit and smashing his head about.

Daru and the others, however, were too busy unpacking their bags and trying not to overheat in the blazing American sun.

"Hooot..." Daru moaned, fanning himself furiously. "Yeah, it's not just me, it really is hot..."

"Mayushii misses the breeze," Mayuri wailed. "Even if it did get awkward when she was wearing a skirt."

Okabe would've also said something had it not been for the fact that his vomit had been baked into a smelly brick.

Ruka was lugging his bags up the stairs, helped out by Faris, while Okabe was once again fighting with Kurisu.

"I don't care if I'm your Assistant!" Kurisu exploded. "I am not your manservant!"

"There's a reason why you're called Assistant, Christina," Okabe replied, making air quotes. "Because you assist me! I'm not asking you to carry my bags, I just think helping me about a bit wouldn't hurt!" he pleaded.

"Jerkass!" Kurisu smacked him over the head. "I'm not your assistant in real life, only your chuunibyou delusion, stupid!" she growled.

"You don't have to be my assistant to be... hmf... nice!" Okabe heaved the bag upwards and strained under the weight of it. "And it's not... hf... a delusion! The... Organisation... has got to you... hffff..." The poor scientist crumpled to the floor a meter away from where he'd started.

"You know that's a bag with wheels, right?" Kurisu asked, peering down at the now 2-dimensional Okabe. "You didn't have to lift that until you got to the stairs."

"Home sweet home," Okabe muttered as he peered around the flat, rolling the "Suitcase of Doom" towards the open door.

Mayuri gasped.

It was much bigger than the lab, but that comparison didn't work. The lab generally had laboratory stuff in it. This flat had... normal people... stuff in it, like an actual TV and a modern laptop. A far cry from the ancient IBN 5100 (that didn't have anything on it on this timeline, hopefully) and the cathode ray TVs that were the launchpad for the Time Leap Machine.

Daru scratched his hair. "Uh, can I take a break, please? I need something cold to drink..."

Kurisu opened the fridge. "Dr. Pepper, Pepsi, ice coffee... aha, Diet Coke." She pulled out a silver can and tossed it at Daru, who caught it and drunk it down gratefully.

Faris dropped her bags on the couch and made it five meters away before collapsing onto the floor, while Ruka had collapsed from heatstroke a while ago, having forgotten to bring any water.

Okabe (after peeling himself off the carpet) had finally managed to get his "Prohibited Cargo" up the stairs. (Damn Organisation agents, always monitoring the border.)

"You all right there?"

"AAAAAAAAAAAA-"

WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-CRASH!

"Riiiight."

"What do you even have in there?" Kurisu asked, pointing at the suitcase in question. "Geez, that looks so heavy it has a noticeable gravitational field," she mumbled.

"That's actually true." Okabe pulled a key from his pockets and unlocked the suitcase, which spilled out lab coats and the odd plastic container labelled with "Flammable" or "Biohazard". He rummaged around in the pile of scientific miscellany before pulling out a... plasma ball.

"That's... your great trick." Kurisu blinked in disbelief. "At least Planck's mathematical trick did something," she mumbled.

"Suspend your disbelief for one moment, Christina, and watch this." Okabe plugged the widget into the wall socket, and switched it on.

"I'd get back if I were you," Daru stated simply, before walking off to the bathroom.

For a couple of moments, nothing happened. Then all hell broke loose as flowers, assorted cutlery and books all began flying towards the plasma ball.

"What the hell?!" Kurisu's jaw dropped. "What are you doing?!" she spluttered. "Turn it off!"

Okabe obliged, and simply leant slightly closer to the plasma ball before he too was dragged across the carpet face-first to crash into the plasma globe.

"Hang on a sec, just let me find the off button on this thing..."

"Hurry up, would you!" Kurisu was noticing her hair was starting to gravitate towards the plasma globe, which meant that the field was growing at a worrying pace.

"Ah, here we go..." There was a loud thunk like an old TV switching off and everything dropped to the floor with an even louder rattle.

Kurisu stared at the giant mess on the floor - a mish-mashed Sharawaggi jumble of cutlery, theses, magazines and the occasional carnation or two.

Okabe dusted himself off and grinned widely. "Ta-da! I present to you... Future Gadget #10!" he announced proudly. "I'm thinking of calling it... Gravity Grunt!"

Kurisu blinked again, before breaking out into laughter.

"What's so funny, Assistant?" Okabe asked, annoyed that he was (once again) being laughed at, and by his own assistant.

"Oh... nothing. It's just that you'll be the one to clean this up." Kurisu glared at him, suddenly flipping moods. "Now get to it!" she ordered.

"Yes... ma'am..." Okabe sighed.

===S;G===

8:37 PM

"There is something I have been wanting to ask you," Okabe said.

Daru and Mayuri were busy playing Rai-Net with the traveler's pack Mayuri had bought with her, so it was just the two of them on the balcony.

"Yes?" Kurisu replied.

"How did you know we were coming?" Okabe scratched his hair in disbelief. "This was meant to be a surprise visit..."

"I have secrets of my own..." Kurisu grinned evilly. "For I am the great mad scientist... Rai-oh Christina! FUAAHAHAAHAAAAAHAAAHAHAHA!" she cackled, waking Faris up.

"There's another one?" she said blearily, before falling asleep again.

"What did I say?" Okabe sighed, rubbing his temples. It had been a long day. Too long a day for Kurisu obviously, since she was referring to himself as "mad scientist" and "Christina".

"I'll give you a hint. If I can master physics and neurobiology at 18, what makes you think I'm not already a computer genius?" Kurisu teased. "Underestimating your assistant? Tsk, tsk," she scolded

"What? But I've never seen you..." Okabe's voice trailed off. "Never mind. So you weren't just on chan all the time..." he wondered, thinking about all the unexpected ways this would affect the universe, before Kurisu shot him a glare that would've melted his eyeballs. "Sorry," he apologised.

Kurisu went back inside and dug around the recently created pile of books, before returning with a book Okabe didn't expect to see.

"Double-Long Plus Plus..." Okabe read. "Daru said he hadn't even mastered half of this stuff," he remembered, from a conversation a long time before he'd started jumping timelines.

"Really? Noob," Kurisu mumbled, before pointing to the name on the cover. "This didn't ring any bells?" she asked.

"Eliot Prufrock. Wait- no way." Okabe turned a ghostly shade of white. "You did literature didn't you?" he remembered (Thanks, Reading Steiner). "And Eliot... Prufrock..." He slapped his forehead in frustration. "Gaaahhh... Having a literary otaku as well as a nerdy one as Assistant..." he mumbled.

"Hey! Don't say that so loudly!" Kurisu blushed pink. When did I tell you I did literature in college? she wondered briefly.

"My assistant wrote this." Okabe said, as if he'd just realised. "I'm proud."

"Shouldn't you be afraid?" Kurisu grinned at him in a way that sent a chill down his spine. "I found a lot more than that rendezvouz notice on your laptop. And I'm free at 6 tomorrow," she said, before turning on her heel and leaving the balcony.

"Wait, what?" Okabe blinked, before running off after her. "Hey, come back!"

What is Okabe hiding? Why did he invent a gravity-shiftin' mighty-morphin' (Power Ranger) Gravity Machine as a Future Gadget? And how does Kurisu being Supah Hakah's genderswap (minus 50 pounds or so and with red hair) lead to Okabe getting a date? Find out next time!

A/N: Fanfic 101!

===S;G===

Omake!

===S;G===

Kurisu opened the fridge. "Uh, Yebisu, Yebisu, Yebisu, Yebisu... aha, a can of soda!" She chucked it at Daru, who glanced at it nervously.

"This is bourbon and cola," he stated, not knowing what else to say. "Not... y'know, Diet Coke."

"Deal with it," Kurisu shrugged, before closing the door and heading to the bathroom to get changed.

"I think she has worse problems than not having an adequate supply of Diet Coke..." Okabe muttered under his breath.