A/N: All characters are owned by Chiyomaru Studio. Without Chiyo's mind, I wouldn't have the opportunity to write this fic.

Spoilers to a twist in Chaos;Child is gonna be shown. Read at your own risk.

Anyway, here's Chapter 13!

Date: September 10, 2031

Divergence: 1.048596* (Steins Gate)

*Worldline shift in 2020 - Not the exact same worldline as it was before the shift.

Time until Overwrite: 5 years, 2 months, 4 days.

Leskinen eyed the three men before him, stroking his beard as he did so. They were all strapped to their own chairs, only because of the fact that he was in the room with them. He was well aware of what kind of men they were and it took everything in his power to not be disgusted at the sight of them, but he had to swallow down that disgust so that he could get his mission done.

Mission... Leskinen could only laugh at that thought.

It wasn't a mission; it wasn't an assignment; it was a threat against his life. He knew it quite well, and he had no choice but to see this "mission" to its completion just so that he and his loved ones could continue living.

Several years prior, the Committee of 300 tasked him - rather Strategic Focus - to find the ever-elusive Phoenix. They never really bothered him about it until they sent one of their lackeys to try and intimidate him into picking up the pace. Until he actually started looking for the damned person-of-interest did he realize just how well they covered their tracks. The only reason why he was even facing these men was because he was desperate, and Stratfor was able to pick up on the fact that they kept blabbering about some man called "Phoenix" coming after them when they were interrogated by the Japanese authorities.

Now, back on US soil, he could only hope that this encounter would lead to some sort of results as to finding out just who The Phoenix is or where exactly they operated from. He wanted freedom for himself just as much as he wanted to ensure that his little Einsteins were not harmed as a result of his inaction. He'd never forgive himself if he failed to protect those three: Maho, Okabe, and Kurisu. It was hard enough as it was, retiring from the university when the Committee tasked him with the assignment, and disappearing without explaining anything to all three of them, but he had to do it just so that they wouldn't be implicated in any of the trouble that might be wrought when attempting to find the Commitee's worst enemy. However, now that he had to actually act, it only made it harder for him to not get any more stressed and keep his composure.

There was a table separating the three men from him. Everyone was seated, and this was a "black room" so no information could ever leak out. It was a bare, gray, stone room. It wasn't exactly big, but it wasn't uncomfortably small either. The only adornments to the room were the three leather chairs that the men were strapped to, and Leskinen's spartan-like metal folding chair. Four, plain, concrete walls surrounded them. No cameras. No microphones. Only Alexis Leskinen himself was going to be able to piece together just who The Phoenix was. He knew they operated in Japan to the point that they managed to almost totally remove the Committee's influence over the area. Not even the politicians that the Committee tried seating gained any popularity with the people because of that counter-organization's interference. Now, he's seen that same influence make its way across the United States and parts of Europe. While the European movement wasn't as noticeable as the one on US soil, it was concentrated in one big piece of the Committee that was formerly theirs - SERN.

Now, The Phoenix was practically everywhere and nowhere at the same time. He could only hope that he'd be able to pinpoint just who they were.

"So," he started. "You three claim to have seen a man codenamed Phoenix, correct?"

He spoke in Japanese. He hated having to speak it because he felt like a fool whenever he did, but it was necessary considering these men were all Japanese with hardly any lick of English in them.

"Y-yes," the man farthest to his left spoke up after a brief silence. "I'm sure that he's that guy you're looking for."

"And?" Leskinen delved further. "How do you know that this man is The Phoenix we're looking for."

All three men looked at each other anxiously. Well, the one in the middle tried to despite the extensive bandages that were wrapped around his face. The one on the farthest left, the one who answered him, had a sling around his shoulder and a black eye. The last one on the far right walked in with crutches, but he seemed to have faired whatever the trio went through better than his other friends.

Leskinen didn't appreciate their hesitance. "My men have already told you that you'd be awarded mightily for any identifying information, didn't we? We're not law enforcers. You can tell us anything. We only care about who The Phoenix is, nothing more."

"W-we were chasing after a woman," the one in the middle impulsively responded. As a result of his bandages covering his nose and basically everything from the top half of his head save for his eyes, he came off as very nasally. "She called someone on her phone to help her. I distinctly hear her saying something along the lines of 'Phoenix, help me.'"

He got interested. This was the best lead he had, and he wasn't going to squander it.

"Did you happen to catch the name of this woman?"

The man on the left responded. "When the guy came, he called her name out a bunch. I think it was...Kurisu?"

Leskinen froze. All of the gears that were turning as he tried deducing just who The Phoenix was, ground to a halt at the mention of Kurisu's name. He looked at all three of them, the three deplorables. All three were previously arrested on charges of sexual assault, but they served their time and got out. He could only assume just why they were chasing after Kurisu. It took all of his experience and morality to not lose face and kill the three men where they sat.

"Was there any reason in particular that you were chasing after this woman? Did she wrong you in any way? Steal? Maybe provoked a reaction out of you three?" Leskinen went off on a tangent just to verify what happened.

"N-no," the bandaged one responded. "We were chasing her because she had a nice body."

The statement warranted cold stares from his two friends. Leskinen was sure that if they weren't bound to their seats, they'd have hit him as hard as they could to shut him up. Leskinen would have appreciated if he himself was bound because it'd make it easier to not tear the man in front of him apart with his own hands.

"W-what?" the man said in reply to the stares he got. "This guy just said he's not with the police, so it's okay for us to talk about it if it means we get our money, right?"

"He could be lying, idiot," the man on the far right finally broke his silence. "You just had to open your fucking mouth."

"Now now," Leskinen closed his eyes and smiled. "I'm not with any sort of law enforcement so what you three do in your free time doesn't bother me in the slightest. I just want information on The Phoenix."

It was a bold-faced lie. Leskinen was used to lying to get what he needed, but this was one of those lies that was the hardest for him to tell without boiling over in seething rage.

"I wouldn't imagine you three chasing the woman in that state," Leskinen continued. "Did something happen afterwards?"

"We cornered her so that we could pay her back for the wrong she did against us," the man on the far left very obviously lied. "In the middle of doing so, a guy who said that she was his wife came out of nowhere and started a fight with us. We gave him a good beating, but he got away with her and he gave us these souvenirs in the process."

The man on the far right stifled a laugh. "You wish that was how it went."

"How'd it actually go?" Leskinen asked.

"Well, same start. We cornered the girl, and in the middle of doing our business, some guy in a labcoat claiming to be her husband ambushed us. If I remember correctly, the girl called him Okarin or something. He proceeded to beat the everloving shit out of us, tied us up, and then got out."

The man on the far left tensed up at the revelation of the truth. No expression could be made out from the man in the middle because his face was covered. Leskinen leaned back in his chair.

Rintaro, Leskinen knew without a doubt that the man called Okarin was Okabe himself. He was no-doubt surprised that Okabe was capable of single-handedly incapacitating all these men, but all the facts about him lined up. No, but wait. He might be associated to that counter-organization, but there's no way to know for sure whether or not he's The Phoenix.

"Okay," Leskinen said. "But that doesn't prove that he's The Phoenix, does it? He might have just followed you three while you chased her or something."

"No," the man on the right responded. "The girl dropped her phone when she called Phoenix, and I distinctly heard his voice when I picked it up. That voice on the phone was the same voice as the guy who kicked our asses."

The revelation brought the whole world crashing down upon Leskinen. He desperately wanted to know just who The Phoenix was just so that he could get the Committee off his back, but to know that Okabe was The Phoenix?

He felt trapped. He didn't want to betray his loved ones, nor did he want to die. He knew that if he reported Okabe to the Committee, he'd inadvertently put Kurisu in danger just because she was married to Okabe. He grit his teeth as he tried thinking about ways to get the Committee off his back without getting Okabe involved. He almost forgot just where he was before he was brought back to reality.

"So, uh," the man in the middle spoke up. "That's good enough, right? Did that help you find out just who the Phoenix was?"

Leskinen surveyed the three once more. They were rapists, degenerates, scum, and they were also the bearers of the bad news that Leskinen wished he never had to learn. He proceeded to walk toward the door.

"I'll bring my men in here to free you and compensate you," Leskinen said. "Thank you for your cooperation."

Leskinen got out of the room to the two people with guns that were standing beside the door. There was no way to be able to figure out just what anyone was talking about in that room as the door and concrete didn't allow sound to escape.

"Did you find out what you needed, sir?" one of the men asked. His voice sounded high. He was probably just a kid.

"Sadly, no," Leskinen said. "We'll just have to keep searching."

"What do we do with those three?" the other soldier asked. His voice was deeper and more commanding. He was obviously one of the higher-ups.

"Kill them," Leskinen ordered. "And dump them in Death Valley while you're at it. We don't want anyone finding their bodies anywhere close to here."

"Sir, yes sir," both men responded without questioning the order and walked into the room.

Leskinen walked away, knowing entirely what was going to happen. All he had to do was find some way to corner Okabe and explain the situation without triggering a reaction out of him. He was dangerous, but he wanted to ensure that the person who came to be his friend understood the situation that Leskinen was trapped in. In the meantime, he had to find alternatives to satisfy the Committee so that they wouldn't kill him for not complying.

"Well, this looks like the best one you've made over these past three days," Kurisu said apologetically.

Okabe could only stare at the goopy monstrosity that was sitting on the plate he had set. It was filled with bubbles and held almost no form as it seemed to just spread out all across the plate.

Oh how the tables have turned, he though to himself.

No matter what, he always remembered that Kurisu was so hopelessly bad at cooking that he could do anything and his food would turn out better than hers. However, looking at the sorry excuse of an omelette that was sitting on his plate forced him to re-assess his confidence in his ability to cook better than Kurisu. Sure, his other self would have faired just fine, but as a victim of World War III, Okabe just wasn't allowed the luxury of being able to eat much cooked food, and when cooks were needed, those tasks were relegated to Yuki and the other girls.

It had been three days since Operation Vidar was completed. Maho pulled strings with the university's higher-ups to get Okabe and Kurisu some days off, allowing for another professor to take his spot in the lecture hall. Maho didn't want to hear any complaining from the two of them, citing the fact that Okabe needed time to get used to the new world he found himself in, and she wouldn't allow him to come back until she knew he was comfortable. Now, Kurisu's been putting him to work, trying to make a normal man out of the mad scientist from World War III.

"Why do I have to keep making these?" he asked her. "Do we seriously only eat omelettes for breakfast?"

"No," Kurisu said as she grabbed a spoon from the drawer next to them. "But I've had these unstoppable cravings for eggs and cheese lately so I really need my omelettes lest both you and I suffer from my withdrawals."

She scooped up a piece of the omelette despite Okabe's protests and stuck it in her mouth, savoring the taste and texture. She swallowed without much effort and licked the corners of her lips.

"Delicious," she said without a hint of sarcasm. "You just have to work on the texture and your flipping skills."

"Addict."

"I don't know how you people treated each other in World War III," Kurisu began a sarcastic response. "But that is not a nice thing to call someone, especially your partner, dimwit."

"You say that as the word 'dimwit' falls right out of your mouth!" Okabe retorted. "Why are you allowed to call me names and I can't do the same?"

"Four words, Okarin. I. Am. Your. Wife," Kurisu shoveled another piece of "omelette" into her mouth. "I'm always right, so it's in your best interest to listen to me, unless you don't want to be rewarded."

"Rewarded?" Okabe asked. "Rewarded with what, a shiny badge that says 'good job'?"

Kurisu gently placed the spoon down onto the pan and looked at Okabe once more. Her usually dull eyes gleamed under her glasses as she stared at him. Okabe felt like a piece of meat being gawked at by some wild animal.

"Let's use some simple logic here, Okarin," she said in a purr. "You and me. Husband and wife. Now, tell me, what is it that loving couples do together and always seem to enjoy no matter what?"

Okabe gulped. This was a totally different woman than the one that was drilling him into trying to make an omelette. She scared Okabe, but he couldn't help feel attracted to her at the same time. He wanted to see where this sudden situation he found himself would lead, but he wasn't just going to let Kurisu take the lead the way she was. He got an epiphany, and stood his ground.

"Christina," he said. "Your inner 2channeler seems to be leaking out."

Wait, Okabe wondered. Why did I say that?!

Predictably, Kurisu froze up, and the foxy act she was putting on dropped as suddenly as it appeared. She then crossed her arms and pouted her usual pout whenever she got upset at Okabe for doing anything that annoyed her. Whatever thoughts at his failure to continue the flow of flirtation vanished when he saw the pout. It was childish, but it brought Okabe back to that endless summer. While the cycle of having to watch Mayuri die over and over again was prevalent, he could never forget the infinite amount of time he spent with Kurisu in those three weeks.

Kurisu was about to yell at Okabe, probably for bringing up 2chan around her, and all Okabe could do was smile. The past three days he spent getting back into the swing of things in a peaceful world were nothing like those three weeks, but he finally felt normal for once. Nothing in regards to Valkyrie. Nothing in regards to the university. Nothing in regards to World War III. This little bubble of time he resided in was his personal paradise, and the angel that accompanied him was none other than Kurisu Makise - er Okabe - herself. The woman before him may have had glasses, her hair may have been trimmed down to shoulder-length and may have gotten a couple gray hairs due to her age, but she was still that girl he fell in love with.

"Okarin?" Kurisu asked, forgoing the verbal abuse.

To think that all it took was a pout, Okabe thought to himself.

He was about to respond to her, but he saw her eyes widen before she covered her mouth. She bolted from her spot next to the stove, past Okabe, and down the hall. She practically kicked their bedroom door down, and ran into it.

"Kurisu?!"

Okabe followed after her, nearly matching the pace she set. Was it the Committee? Had they poisoned her? Okabe shook those chuuni thoughts out of his head. It was obviously a result of the "omelette" he cooked, but he couldn't help feeling worried for her. The door slid open in response to the movement allowing him into the bedroom. The sheets were done, a chore that Kurisu had set for Okabe before she forced him into the kitchen to try his hand at cooking.

Kurisu was nowhere in sight.

Okabe walked past the television set and into the bathroom. Luckily - or unluckily - for him, it was a walk-in bathroom, so there was no door in sight.

He peered into the toilet area where Kurisu practically had her head dipped into the toilet as she was heaving out the contents of her stomach. It was a sickly sight. The dominatingly attractive woman was reduced to that, and Okabe could hardly bear to watch. No matter what, he could never get used to people puking, even though it was prevalent due to radiation poisoning when a nuclear-tipped missile hit Shibuya on the Beta Attractor Field.

"K-Kurisu?" Okabe asked, plugging his nose. "Are you okay?"

The only response was more heaving.

I've done it again, Okabe thought. I've just killed Kurisu. Again.

The fact that he could think of such a joke without devolving into madness made Okabe feel better about his mental state. Maho could easily tell that it was in tatters, and that he needed time in order to regain his footing. He could only thank her for giving him the break he needed from everything.

A couple more seconds passed before Kurisu's face was visible from the toilet bowl. A line of drool connected her to it, forcing Okabe to gulp down whatever food was surfacing in his throat out of pure disgust. She grabbed a piece of toilet paper and wiped her mouth with it before throwing it into the toilet and flushing it along with whatever she threw up.

She sat there, almost as if she was waiting for anything else to come up.

"W-was it the omelette?" Okabe timidly asked from behind the jutted part of the wall that hid the toilet area from sight.

"No," Kurisu said weakly. "The omelette was just fine."

She managed to get that out before she heaved again, but thanks to having a sense of hearing, Okabe didn't hear anything hit water. He heard her take a deep breath, prompting Okabe to peek over the wall once more.

"You think you got it all out?" Okabe felt his confidence rise at the lack of any more stomach contents coming out of Kurisu.

Kurisu coughed a bit. "..Yeah"

"Alright, let's get your teeth brushed and lay you down, shall we?"

Okabe held his breath as he helped Kurisu up from her position. He walked her over to the sink and helped her into the sink where the high-pressure mixture of water and some minty paste shot into Kurisu's mouth. She moved her head, getting to hit every part of her mouth that she could get it to hit.

Once that was done, Okabe guided Kurisu back into the room and got her into bed, putting the covers over her.

"I'm sorry for making you do this," Kurisu said. "This is the worst nausea spell I've had."

"Was that the first time you ever felt naseous?"

"No," Kurisu replied. "I've had it for a week now, but it's never gotten to the point where I had to throw up."

Okabe knew this situation all too well thanks to his experience on the Beta Attractor Field. He was the one that was by another woman's side when everything went down, and he even accompanied her doctors when she was due. That woman of course, was Yuki.

"Kurisu," Okabe said. "Did you and I ever..."

Kurisu looked at him questioningly. No matter how hard he tried to avoid saying it, there was no way for her to actually know what he was talking about unless he spelled it out for her.

"Did we have sex in this past month or so?"

There was no other way for Okabe to put it without addressing the point in its entirety. The mention of sex made Kurisu a little flustered. She sat up quickly and got red in the face, almost as if she were embarassed over a totally natural thing to do with a loving partner. Then again, she still probably wasn't entirely used to him being her husband instead of the man who actually saved her life.

"W-what are you implying?" Kurisu asked trying to avoid the somehow uncomfortable question.

"I'll tell you what I'm implying when you answer the question."

"W-wait," she looked at him as if looking for guidance. "Are you telling me that I might be pregnant?"

Naturally, Kurisu was able to come up with the answer Okabe was looking for without much help. Granted, it seemed pretty obvious to him because of how closely he had to follow Yuki's pregnancy, but he didn't know how obvious it would be to someone like Kurisu. The extreme mood swings, cravings, and now this nausea practically spelled it out for him at this point.

The look on Kurisu's face was a mixture of shock and muted excitement. While these symptoms seemed to have confirmed it, he could tell that she wasn't entirely sure whether or not she actually did have a baby growing inside of her.

Kurisu shot out of bed, and started rifling through her nightstand. Her face was one of pure concentration as she seemed to be looking for one thing and one thing only. She found what she was looking for with a quick "Aha!"

It was a home pregnancy test. While the world advanced in every form of technology, the technology to detect early pregnancy at home seemed to still remain the same. It was a peculiar thought to Okabe.

"Wait here a second," she got up from her spot and walked into the bathroom.

"Why do you already have one of those on hand?"

Kurisu paused for a second and looked down. It was almost as if she realized something saddening.

"You and I were trying for a baby," she never turned around. "This was going to be our quickest way to detect it if I ever had any symptoms, like the nausea spell you just pointed out. I missed my period last week, so here's to hoping, huh?"

She started walking into the bathroom once more.

It was another memory that Okabe never made. The overwhelming desire to want to father a child never seemed like a possibility to him, but his previous version continued to surprise him. At that point, Okabe knew that the root of Kurisu's sadness came from the fact that he couldn't remember anything; she made that blatantly obvious when she told him in between sobs four nights ago.

His PhoneDroid started buzzing on his nightstand.

Okabe walked over to it. The contact listed on the screen was none other than Daru. He peeked at the time which was listed at the top of the device.

"11:10"

If he did his math correctly, that meant it was midnight in Tokyo at that point. He could only assume that Daru was calling in regards to something that had to do with Valkyrie.

He picked up the phone.

"Hello?" he said into it.

"Okarin, I need you to be honest with me," Daru said right off the bat. "Did you ever tell Kuri-tan about what happened with the Professor?"

Okabe's mind raced back to that time when he drugged Leskinen. It was in an effort to stop him from reporting his identity to the Committee. He knew that the Professor was going to stab him in the back if he took his offer, so he had to fight back. Naturally, he knew just how close Leskinen was with Maho and Kurisu, so he didn't want to tell them what he had done since they might not have had as clear a view as he did in regards to needing to keep Leskinen quiet.

He opted to remain silent.

Daru sighed in response. "Okarin, you have to tell her now. You made a mistake in judgement. I understand, it's a perfectly human response to someone that tortured you on another worldline, but you made the wrong move."

"What do you mean, 'mistake in judgement,' and 'wrong move'? Daru didn't you hear what he was saying? He was blackmailing me!"

Okabe made sure to keep his voice down so that Kurisu didn't hear him.

"I perceived it differently than you, Okarin. He was giving both of you a way out, and you took that for granted. Now we're stuck in this situation, and I need you to be calm for it so that you can break the news to Kuri-tan too."

"What?" Okabe was confused.

"I snooped around the Professor's pokecom files by tracing his email address to it. There was a whole ton of correspondence between him and his contact about your identity as the Phoenix, and the Professor kept keeping him at bay by not revealing you. He began studying the New Encephalitis cases as a way to satisfy the Commitee without having to give you up."

Okabe began pacing. He made a mistake? Leskinen was trying to protect him this whole time?

But wait, he thought. What I did to him was harmless in the long run. I didn't totally wipe his memory.

"Okarin," Daru pulled Okabe out of his train of thought. "One of our facilities in Hokkaido went offline a couple days ago. When the cameras and electricity came back online, all that was there was blood and dead bodies, and the person housed there is nowhere to be found"

"What?" Okabe got even more confused. "What does that have to do with this?"

Daru wasted no time answering his question. "Because I feel like this incident is directly related to the Professor."

"Wha-?"

"Professor Leskinen was found dead last night."

Okabe froze in place.

"Everything surrounding the circumstances of his death points to one of your former test subjects. Shuichi Wakui."

The Professor? Dead? Okabe had to sit down on the bed as the news hit him. Murdered?

Okabe heard an ecstatic cheer from the bathroom followed by hurried footsteps into the room.

"Okarin! Look!"

In Kurisu's hand was her pregnancy test. On the display, in clear sight, were two parallel lines.

A/N: And there's Chapter 13 in the books. I don't really have much to say in this note as I already got a lot of it out in the flashback that came before this chapter. I bet y'all didn't expect that pregnancy, huh? Chapter 4 planted the seeds, if you could notice, so I thought I'd make those seeds bloom in this chapter, and I feel like it wrapped up nicely. No one's actions are inconsequential. No matter what, there will always be a consequence to a decision you make, and I think you got that feeling here at the end.

Thank you for following this story! As always, I really appreciate the fact that you guys are taking time out of your day to read the stuff I write. Make sure to leave a review to tell me how you think it's going so far! If not, my inbox is always open, and I read every PM you send! Feel free to critique me! I always want to get better. Chapter 14 is in the works and I should be able to release it before my life ramps up and I head off to university. Fingers crossed!

~Quil