Date: December 11, 2010

Divergence: 1.048596 (Steins Gate)

Time until Overwrite: 25 years, 11 months, 3 days.

Kurisu flopped on her bed in her comfy Los Angeles home, flustered by the embarassing letter she had sent Okabe which was said to have been delivered to him at this point. She didn't even know the guy that well and here she was sending him letters as if she were more than acquainted with him. She had spent a month or so looking for him after he had done what he did at Radio Kaikan, but she never found any trace of him until they ran into each other in the streets of Akihabara. Some inner part of her felt like she had known him for a lifetime, but she swore she had never seen him before July 28th, the day her dad nearly killed her. That guy...he was something else. He had the nerve to speak to her as if he knew her, too, and it bugged her to no end. Were Japanese teenagers really that rude?

She grabbed her Upa cushion which was gifted to her by a girl she hardly got to know, Mayuri, and pulled herself up beside it before hugging it tightly in between her chest and legs.

Her room was as girly as it got. It was dominated by warm, red colors and exuded a warmth that always comforted her after she had a long day at the Institute in Victor Chondria. It had a pink carpet and her comforter was pink on top of that. Her ceiling fan was the purest white as it could get and she made sure to clean it of dust every day she could. Just across from her bed was her desk, where her red laptop was sitting. It used to have pictures of her and the rest of her family, but after what her father had done, she couldn't help but replace it with pictures she had taken alone with her mother. Seeing the pictures reminded her of the heartbreak she felt when her dad was willing to throw her aside just for his petty fame; the fear she felt when he attacked her. But he was there, he saved her.

She looked over at her nightstand. Sitting atop it, along with her small jar of purple gladioulus flowers was a small, circular, golden pin that resembled a gear wheel. Alongside what would be considered the top were the letters OSHMKUFA with the year 2010 engraved beside it. The pin resting on her nightstand was the product of the first time she ran into her savior after the Radio Kaikan incident. She remembered it clearly:

"I finally met you."

She spent so long wandering the streets of Akiba in hopes of finding him once more. She delayed her flight back to America for a couple days in order for her to be able to at least say thank you to her savior, but he had seemingly vanished from existence as quickly as he entered her reality. She struggled. But when she caught a glimpse of the labcoat, of the man facing her back then, she felt a warmth in her heart, an appreciation. Her savior stood in awe when, in reality, she should have been. It seemed as if time froze around them.

"I've been looking for you all this time," she said. "Ever since you saved me back then, I've always- I've always wanted to find you so that I could at least say one word of gratitude. I wanted to meet you no matter what. So, thank you. From the bottom of my heart."

She smiled, a tear unwittingly making its way out of her eye, but she recovered before it fell. The man that stood in front of her was him. She could easily tell. His face and his mannerisms were engraved into her memory, and she could never forget him no matter how hard she tried. She remembered him getting stabbed for her, a sacrifice made in order to protect a total stranger like her.

"I'm so glad you're safe," she continued before tears began flowing down her cheeks.

She wasn't sobbing, but she was crying nonetheless. For the first time in her life, someone was willing to go out of their way to do something for her. She smiled at the man whose softness radiated the comfort she was looking for after so long. It was so weird. She never met him before, but the appreciation she felt for him was beyond anything she thought she could feel. He smiled at her, almost seeming like he was about to devolve into tears as well.

The man reached into his labcoat pocket to pull out a red cellphone. She wondered if he had gotten a call from someone important. He put it up to his ear almost as soon as he took it out.

"It's me," he said frantically. "Why is she here? Even though my 'Reading Steiner' didn't activate- What?! Me, protect her?! Don't just say things on your own like that!"

Whoever was on the phone with him was seemingly arguing with him about something. Were they talking about her? All she could do was watch as the man that saved her talked with an unknown person on the other side of the line.

"Is that the choice of Steins Gate? Fine then, El Psy Kongroo."

Kurisu could only look in wonder at the man before her. The words that he uttered rang a sort of familiarity within her that she couldn't quite pinpoint and she hated herself for not being able to remember just where those words came from.

"So we meet again, Christina," he said to who she could only presume was her.

"No, just how many times do I have to tell you that there's no -tina at the end of my name and that I'm not your assist-"

She caught herself before she could go any further. What she had just said felt like it was out of habit and she could only feel like it was something she had said often even though she had no memory of doing so. The man's face flashed a look of surprise, and they both stood in shock at what she had told him. She couldn't help feel a little embarrassed.

"I...just now...words just suddenly popped into my head..." she could only explain it as that and nothing more. "Why...?"

He could only smile.

"Nice to meet you, assistant of mine, Makise Kurisu -no- Christina."

He reached into his coat's other pocket and pulled out a pin which resembled a gear wheel and extended it out to her. Confusion and curiosity mounted within her, but she could only accept what was being given to her.

"This is the choice of Steins Gate."

Now, Kurisu could feel redness invading her face. She could only hate her past self for being so impressed by such a child. Almost all feelings of gratitude nearly evaporated once she found out who the man truly was. Okabe Rintaro. A university student attending Tokyo Denki University and majoring in Engineering. He seemed normal enough, but then she got to know him a little bit better after that and she hoped she hadn't. She would have rather lived with the dream of a perfect man who was her hero at Radio Kaikan rather than the man she knew now. A self-proclaimed "mad scientist". A delusional maniac who always spouted stuff about the Organization and called her names that she didn't want to be called.

She sighed into her Upa pillow. Despite all that, she couldn't help sending him the stupid letter telling him about her day-to-day. Sure, he had his nice moments, he saved her life after all, but those moments were only glimpses at what she believed were what made him up. For the two days she was there after finding him, she noticed so many subtle hints as to who he was. He was a generous person, but that generosity was locked behind that damned Hououin Kyouma personality that his deluded mind had come up with. She swore she hated him, but deep down she felt a kind of deep connection with him that she never thought she was capable of. She could only assume that it was all from those dreams she had about him.

She got red just thinking of them. In one of them, she went so far as to get in bed with him! (A/N: this part comes from my M-rated one-shot story, which is canon in this fanfic) But there was more to just being embarrassed, she felt...sad whenever she recalled it. It was almost as if she were saying goodbye to him forever. All that emotion was felt in the dream, so much so that it felt way too real for her, as if that had actually happened to her at some point.

A vibrating phone on her bed knocked her out of her thoughts. It only vibrated twice, meaning that Kurisu had gotten an email. She quickly jumped on it, opening up to examine its contents. The sender read: Okabe Rintaro. The subject of the message was merely, "Thank You".

She held her breath as she opened it, waiting to see what was in store for her.

A/N: Well, there's a short flashback. I know it wasn't much in terms of character development or anything, but it gave me a chance to write something completely isolated without affecting the rest of my story. I just finished Chaos;Child and my AP testing is over, so a full chapter is in the works and should be out some time after this was posted. Thank you for tagging along the ride! I hope you're not disappointed.

~Quil