A/N: Hello and happy Saturday wherever you may be! I'm not going to lie, it took a lot of last-minute editing to get this into a presentable state, but overall I'm very proud of how this chapter turned out. This chapter is the first true divergence from the original story and will show exactly the kind of remaster I'm going for. I hope you like it!
A content warning for the chapter ahead - the end of the first portion contains content that is sexual in nature - if you don't like it, you can skip ahead to the present time. The flashbacks mainly serve as little snippets of information that make themselves available in the present anyway.
Enjoy!
Date: August 4, 2012 12:53:12AM JST
Divergence: 1.048596 (Steins Gate)
"...isu!" Kurisu Makise felt like she was being shaken from a horrible dream. "Kurisu!"
Kurisu shot up in her bed to the feeling of a hand on her chest. Her chest was heaving as she tried to get her breathing under control, sweat was pouring out of every pore in her body, and most notably, tears were leaking down her cheeks. Her head snapped to her right towards the origin of the hand that quickly retracted itself from her chest the moment she sat up. There, in bed next to her, was her boyfriend with a gaze that managed to pierce her very being.
"What…" Kurisu's hairs were on end as she felt watched by more than just Okabe. "...What's wrong…?"
She scanned the room, trying to remember what caused her to feel that way. Mid-scan analysis, her thoughts led her to what she dreamt about. All Kurisu could remember from her dream was that it was about her father. She hated dreaming about that man with every fiber of her being, but every now and again, she was reminded of just how much he mentally scarred her.
She watched Okabe adjust himself to sit up with her - he himself was shirtless - and there she was reminded of just how dangerously close she was to dying by his hand. Two years removed from that fateful July day, there was still a patch of skin on Okabe's belly that was discolored from the rest. That patch of skin was his sacrifice to save her from her father. When paired with the dream that she could hardly remember, guilt began to replace her nerves.
"That should be my line," Okabe replied, his voice rasping her ears due to the graveliness of it. "You were crying and whimpering in your sleep."
Kurisu's cheeks flushed at the revelation of what she was doing in her sleep. Despite dating Okabe for nearly a year, much of their relationship was long-distance save for when they first started dating and the winter break when she visited him, so there was still plenty of discomfort showing that kind of vulnerability to the guy. Her guilt quickly gave way to embarrassment as she immediately went on the defensive.
"W-What were you even doing awake?" she helplessly tried to redirect the conversation. "Don't tell me you were being a creep and just watched me sleep."
To drive the point home, she brought the covers up to hide her chest. She was wearing a t-shirt - his t-shirt - but without her bra and with the near-translucent nature of the white shirt, there was a tad bit more exposure of her chest that Okabe could have ogled at if she wasn't careful.
"You're being so infantile, Christina," Okabe retorted, his throat beginning to clear. "I've already had my fill of your naked body a couple hours ago. Or have we forgotten all about 'Make me yours, Kyouma-sama~!'?"
Whatever was left of Kurisu's face that wasn't red almost instantly became so as she recalled the earlier part of the night. Granted, Okabe exaggerated his high-pitched tone as well as the fact that she called him anything other than "Rintaro", but the rest was right on the mark - and the shame she felt as she recalled what didn't sound cringey in the moment was enough to heat her face up to the nth degree. The nerves in her arm fired up in response, making her unconsciously take a swing at Okabe's chest in the form of a backhanded slap. Okabe yelped at the onset of her attack, but overall it had no effect on him, proven by the impish grin that spread across his face as he rubbed his chet.
"You can't just make me say that kind of stuff just so you can use it against me!" she protested, the volume of her tone matching the sheer amount of mortification flowing through her veins.
"Make you?!" Okabe cackled. "My oh my, Assistant of mine, I believe those words came out of your mouth of your own volition!"
Kurisu sucked in her breath. She hated that the man was right. She especially hated (though not really) that he got good enough in bed to put her in such a compromising position to begin with. When they first started sleeping with each other, he had no sense of rhythm and was particularly selfish in reaching his own climax - a virgin in every sense of the word. However, as they spent more nights together and had more sessions, he very rapidly discovered his form and she found herself experiencing bliss so much more often than not - a sense of bliss that was capable of making her blurt out things she was naturally too embarrassed to say. All she could do was continue arguing.
"'Christina' this, 'Assistant' that!" she latched onto a new point to argue. "You do know those aren't proper pet names you give to a significant other, right?!"
There was some actual frustration in those words. For the year that they dated, Okabe seemed to be rather avoidant of calling Kurisu anything remotely close to something lovey-dovey. He always resorted to the same childish nicknames that he assigned her when they met for the first time after he rescued her. She tried dabbling in pet names for him, but nothing really flowed smoothly out of her mouth besides his actual name. There were even times where her brain almost slipped and she would call him "Okabe" because that was all she would ever call him on the lead-up to them dating. Whenever Okabe regarded her with those dumb nicknames, though, she usually made it a point to ignore him - or hang up on him if they were on the phone (this time was an anomaly given the nature of the situation), but it seemed like the man never got the hint.
Okabe opened his mouth, ready to push even more of her buttons. However, before he could, a loud banging on the wall behind them interrupted him. A disembodied voice followed the banging, yelling "Shut up!"
Kurisu never realized how loud they were until the voice brought them back to reality. They were currently staying in the usual hotel that Kurisu booked whenever she visited Japan. It was relatively luxurious, a queen bed that faced a flatscreen TV, a smoothly carpeted floor, a full bathroom complete with a bath and shower, and a corner table with a wooden chair where she could do her work. The hotel was right down the street from Akihabara's train station and a couple of blocks away from the Future Gadget Lab - a perfect place to be especially with the air conditioning it provided in the heat of summer. Of course, that meant that she had to contend with her own set of noisy neighbors every now and again in rooms next to hers. Never before had she considered herself the noisy one until tonight; even the times she slept with Okabe consisted of grunted whispers and stifled moans. Kurisu was glad that she got her first noise complaint for arguing with him rather than getting laid by him.
"And here I was afraid we'd never get back to the original point," Okabe was quick to seize the opportunity in a more hushed tone. "Are you okay?"
Whatever deviousness his face contained when he was arguing with her vanished, replaced by a earnest, yet gentle look of concern. She didn't like it. Every single time they argued, there was always an emotional switch-up he did that made her weak to him and his advances - this was one of those times. She simply humphed, sliding back down into bed from her upright position and turned away from Okabe. If she didn't see him or hear him out, she wouldn't feel like a schoolgirl discovering her first romance (though this was actually her first romance). She needed to be in control.
Okabe followed her down, wrapping his arms around her, and cuddled her as the big spoon to her little spoon. She wasn't actually mad at the man so she had to fight every unconscious urge to shake him off. She actually enjoyed being held in this way by him. They simply laid there for a few moments. Kurisu could feel Okabe's warm, comforting breath against the nape of her neck as she backed herself into him. She felt the skin of her uncovered legs touch his since both were in their underwear - even with the air conditioning, it was still too warm to sleep any other way. In response, he wrapped his arms even tighter around her, the environment set for her to finally fess up.
"I had a dream about my dad," her soft admittance was nearly imperceptible even to herself, yet somehow she knew that Okabe would hear her. "I don't remember the specifics, but I know any dream I have of him is basically a nightmare."
"I could assume as much," Okabe's voice was loud and clear to her, given that his mouth was right next to her ear. "There was a 'Papa' that escaped your lips mid-whimper."
"How long did you watch me for?" Kurisu hissed as her head snapped to the side, trying to peer at the Peeping Tom behind her.
"Not long," Okabe replied. "I'd say only for about a minute since I was sound asleep myself. Once I heard you call out for him was when I tried shaking you awake."
Kurisu let her head fall back to its place on the pillow. She was beyond upset. When she returned to America after spending July and August of 2010 in Japan, her mother rushed to get her counseling. Try as she might to fight the reality of what happened, her counselor was quick to diagnose her with PTSD once she revealed the extent of the breakdowns she'd have if there was anything that reminded her of her father. It got to the point where she had to take an extended leave of absence from the Neuroscience Institute because the thought of doing anything science-related brought him to the forefront of her mind. It wasn't until the summer of 2011, shortly before the trip to Japan that made her and Okabe official, that she was able to push herself to return - the thoughts that placed themselves at the forefront of her mind shifting from her father to Okabe and the rest of the Future Gadget Lab. She didn't know if the things Okabe did to make it so was purposeful, but regardless she was beyond thankful to him for helping her recover the passion she very nearly had stolen from her by her father.
"I'm sorry for waking you," Kurisu grumbled. "I thought I'd be over it by now."
"That's a rather impossible expectation you've set for yourself, Assistant," there Okabe went again with the nickname she hated. "I think where you're at now with your mental state is highly commendable. It's not a common occurrence to have a father you looked up to try to kill you."
"Your tactlessness astounds me, Rintaro," Kurisu clicked her tongue, breaking free from his clutches and turned to face him. "I'm surprised you managed to fit something nice to say in between that stupid nickname and a reminder of my trauma."
"But look at you," he said. "You're able to talk about it and not a single tear is being shed. Remember how often you used to break down when everything was still fresh?"
He was right. As annoyed as she was about his response, annoyance was all she felt. Had he made a similar comment to that when she was still newly into her counseling, she would have turned into a sniveling mess. Now that she faced him, she could see the shine in his eyes as he spoke. His hair, having been washed, succumbed to gravity since he was on his side - the dead of night and the early morning were the only times Kurisu ever saw him without his hair slicked back. The way he looked at her made his sharp features somehow appear much softer to her, a softness she was glad she could now admire openly since they were a couple. Her attention was mainly brought to his two-day-old stubble. She cursed her drunken 2011 self for exposing just how much she liked it, recalling the audacity she had of throwing herself on top of him and rubbing her face against his. However, now she had less shame for her admittedly weird attraction to the prickliness of Okabe's face.
She let air blow out of her nose, choosing not to respond to her boyfriend. Instead, she put her right index finger on his cheek, rubbing it across his face to get a feel for his stubble.
"Your fascination with my stubble is incredibly odd, Christina," Okabe's mouth moved, making her lose track of her position on his face. It upset her that he broke her concentration, so she started back at where she initially placed her finger.
"Just shut up and let me do this. You should feel lucky that a woman like me is attracted enough to you to touch you like this."
He snorted a chortle, but relented and let her do her thing.
She let her focus stay on his face for as long as it took to be able to feel the prickle of all of his stubble, but eventually her gaze, along with her finger, slowly went down his torso towards his belly where the scar was. The skin that made up the scar was rough to the touch compared to the rest of his body. It was about 13 centimeters long and 8 centimeters wide, a scar that did not belong to a knife wound. She only found out through prudent questioning that the reason why it was so big was because the idiot dug his hand deep into his already-open wound to cover her with his blood. He claimed that it was a necessary step in saving her, but neglected to tell her any more besides the fact that he had to travel through time to do it.
"I suppose the alternative to lying here complaining about my trauma would be a grave and a tombstone," she sighed, continuing to caress his scar. "Thanks for deeming my life worthy enough to travel through time to save."
Okabe's hand cupped her chin as he gently raised her head to meet his eyes. He peered intently into her very core, but rather than feeling exposed or scared, Kurisu felt tranquility flood through her body, and the world around her began to move in slow motion. For this very brief moment where she got lost in the dazzling universe that dotted Okabe's brown eyes, Kurisu felt the most seen she had ever been. Yes, she had her counselor, she had her mother, she had Maho, she even had Professor Leskinen if she ever needed to simply talk about her trauma. However, deep within her heart she somehow knew that the only person who could truly understand her was this man who held her gaze and all of her soul with it.
"If it meant saving your life, I would travel through time as many times as it takes," the initial raspiness of his sleepy voice gave way to a resonance that got Kurisu unexpectedly excited. "I've decided that the only world I want to live in is one with you in it, my love."
The tranquility that Kurisu felt was quickly replaced with warmth. A warmth in her heart as she processed what exactly Okabe said; a warmth in her womanly core as she processed how exactly he said it. Hearing those words flipped a switch within her. Every feeling she felt in the initial waking moments of the night almost instantly evaporated. The only feeling that remained was a want for him.
She closed her eyes and the distance between her lips and his disappeared within an instant. The kiss started off gentle, but Kurisu very quickly made it clear that she wanted it to be anything but. Okabe was completely caught by surprise by the sheer ravenousness with which Kurisu made out with him. This surprise allowed her to break the kiss momentarily and push him onto his back to climb on top of him. She straddled his waist and ripped off her t-shirt before she dove back down onto him, feeling his other head begin to make its presence known to her as time went on.
"You just know exactly what to say and when to say it, don't you, you jerk," she growled in between kisses. "This is your fault."
A breathy grunt forced its way out of Okabe's throat. Using the time in which she broke the kiss to scold him, he forcefully swapped positions with her and pinned both her arms over her head with just one of his hands. With her fully pinned down, he began to attack her neck, sucking on her most sensitive spots, which sparked even more electricity to course through her body. Kurisu initially limited herself to gasps, but luckily for her, her boyfriend was conscientious enough to cover her mouth with his free hand, allowing her to moan as freely as she wanted into it. She was being pushed completely over the edge as Okabe switched targets from her neck to her chest. Kurisu began to squirm, louder moans escaping her mouth only to be suppressed by Okabe's hand. She felt her lower half hunger for so much more that it was becoming absolutely unbearable for her to hold off any longer. She needed him. Much to Okabe's chagrin, Kurisu managed to push him off of herself, but quickly gave him more to be excited about as she moved to slip off her underwear. As if he knew exactly what she wanted, Okabe removed his hand from her mouth, tossed the covers aside, and lowered his position so that his face was level with her lower half. He helped her take her panties the rest of the way off and, much to her delight, he began to explore her with his tongue, forcing her to stifle the sounds that squeaked out of her with her own hands.
In the back of her mind while they began their second round of the night, Kurisu thought that perhaps the easiest way to get him to call her things like "My love" was to reward him each time he did so with an experience that she found equally pleasurable - a win-win situation for her. These thoughts were only at the back of her mind, though, as the thoughts that dominated the rest of it were simply the many sensations that flooded her synapses thanks to her astonishingly ravishing boyfriend.
Date: November 14, 2036 2:02:08AM PST
Divergence: 1.048596 (Steins Gate)
The sounds of the city swept the already-confounded Rintaro Okabe into a whirlwind of stimuli. The woman before his eyes glared at him with contempt as he tried to center himself around this new worldline. All he got for his initial discovery efforts was a cold, hard slap to the face from someone who he could only consider to be close to him. His heart was in his throat as he was still completely in the dark regarding the situation of the world. At any moment, he could be ambushed and taken in by the New Government or even SERN. He needed to analyze his escape routes before such a situation arose.
He first ran over the railing that overlooked the unrecognizable cityscape before him. His gaze trailed down the side of the building, looking for ledges or fire escapes that he could potentially use if he was forced to jump. There was nothing viable that he could use as a first-case solution, but if push came to shove, there was a fire escape about 5 floors below him that he could land on at risk of injury. His head quickly snapped back to the door that led out to the rooftop, completely glazing over the now very concerned woman on the ground. The doorway was small, only really allowing for two people side-by-side to enter at once. With rifles? There was no possible way more than one person could fit through it, so barricading it was a top option. His scan then quickly took him to the rest of the rooftop for places he could use to hide. There was the occasional air-conditioning tower, small plants that formed a sort of blooming rooftop garden, and some lawnchairs. There was absolutely nowhere for him to hide unless he used the darkness to his advantage.
"What... what are you doing?" the woman on the floor called to Okabe in the middle of his stupor.
"I can be ambushed at any time," he responded, now switching his search to looking for potential traps. "I need to be ready for them."
"'Them'?" The woman's confusion was quick to knock Okabe out of his current focus. "Are… are you actually making a joke out of this by using The Organization?"
The Organization. That name being uttered brought him back to the days before he got wrapped up in time travel - days of innocence that he sorely missed. The earnestness with which the question was asked brought some relief to Okabe. Had he heard a mention of either SERN or the New Government, then his suspicions would have remained on high alert. With his heart no longer in his throat and his ability to think rationally returning, Okabe could only make the fairest assumption since jumping into the worldline.
"So you are the Kurisu of Steins Gate," he murmured, tension working its way out of his shoulders. "It worked."
Relief immediately flooded the rest of his body, bringing him to his knees. His tormented breathing quickly turned to tears of joy as he let his emotions fully take hold of him. Thousands of time leaps, years of war, and multiple near-death experiences outside of the realm of convergence finally gave way to the promised worldline.
Kurisu watched him intently from her own spot on the floor. Her own emotions were short-circuiting as she didn't know what to think or feel. There, crying on the floor beside her, was a man who - until this point - was her husband. However, the sheer weight she could feel drop off his shoulders when he confirmed that he was on Steins Gate allowed her to envision his suffering so palpably. She knew the gist of her husband's suffering in the recurring loops of the Alpha Worldline, but this man carried the trauma of those loops plus whatever he went through in the Beta Worldline to put together the plan that saved her life. She wanted so desperately to resent this man, but all she saw when she looked at his face was her husband. She saw the way his eyebrows crinkled; his stifled sobs; the way the tears clung to his eyes, never daring to fall down his cheek no matter how emotional he was; every mannerism just in this display of emotion was the same as her husband's. It brought a pained smile to her face just being able to see flashes of her husband even though he was now gone.
She decided to take advantage of the fact that her emotions were stuck in a state of confusion so that she could get the answers that she needed. Only then, perhaps, would she be able to grieve. She got up from her spot on the floor, her blanket still draped over her shoulders and approached the man who was barely recovering from his own emotional outburst. He watched her with what seemed like a mixture of worry and admiration, not knowing exactly what she was going to do. Having closed the gap and looking down at him, she extended her hand out to him.
"You made it to Steins Gate, Okabe Rintaro," she said, breathing out whatever shakiness was left in her voice. "Let's get you inside and we can talk."
Okabe grabbed Kurisu's hand and let her guide him back into the building. Many questions still swirled in his head, but at the very least his most important ones were answered and Kurisu seemed intent on helping him clarify whatever was left. He now knew he was in Steins Gate; he knew that Kurisu immediately could tell that he came from a different worldline - and based on her initial reaction, she seemed to have been dreading it; he knew there were no outside forces to worry about in this worldline of peace. That was all he could ascertain on assumptions alone. The rest was reliant on how well the woman who was leading him by the hand down the stairwell that led to the roof would be able to shine a light on the less obvious things he didn't know.
They got down to the 22nd floor, three floors below the rooftop. The hallway of the 22nd floor was lit, a permanent thing so that no other apartment dwellers would injure themselves on the rough pale stone that made up the walls. Every 10 feet or so, the stone wall was interrupted by a steel door with an RFID sensor serving as the lock and the number of the room lasered just above the door's peephole. They started at 2201 and Kurisu continued to guide Okabe until they reached 2216 at the end of the hall. If they turned left, there were many more doors that were uncountable, but Kurisu stopped at this corner room which had no other room near it. She fished out a keycard from her pocket and scanned it on the RFID lock, eliciting a beep that prompted their entry.
Once they walked through the entrance hallway where they took off their slippers, Kurisu turned on the lights and Okabe felt like he was transported into a completely different world. The apartment was massive: right next to the entrance was the kitchen which contained an 8-burner stovetop resting atop an oven - a kitchenette which was encased in a black, marble-like table. At the right-hand corner of the half-square kitchen was the sink and dishwasher which themselves were rather big compared to what Okabe was used to. White drawers and cabinets filled in the gaps between the oven and dishwasher. Then, even more cabinets adorned the wall above the half-square, only being broken up by the big fan that sat above the stovetop. Embedded into the wall just to the right of the sink was the refrigerator. And that was just a small part of the kitchen! The majority of it was a rather large, black island table, long enough to fit four chairs. On it were some papers and bags, but they weren't strewn about - rather they looked like projects waiting to be continued.
And the floor! Oh the floor. While the kitchen and entrance hallway were adorned with a skin-toned tile that extended out to just behind the island, the rest was a near-spotless off-white carpet. Okabe could feel his toes instinctively curl as he stepped on the insanely soft carpet that extended down the hall to his right and into the living room just ahead of him. Kurisu chose to continue towards the living room.
The living room itself felt just as spectacular to Okabe as the kitchen. It was the closest to the wall opposite the door and, to his amazement, the blinds which Kurisu raised revealed the very same cityscape he saw from the rooftop, immediately prompting the thought of, Just how can we possibly afford this?
The assortment of the living room was what could be described as family-style. A dark brown couch that could comfortably sit four people along with two small tables at each end of it sat on one wall; a flatscreen TV was hooked into the opposite wall. To the left of the couch was a tan reclining chair, but what caught Okabe's eye was the rather large dark-colored kotatsu that sat squarely in the middle of the room. It was this kotatsu that Kurisu beelined for, getting herself seated on the side facing the TV and covering her legs with the futon. Okabe, still staring at everything around him and trying to get a bearing for the room, let his eyes scan the walls. They were adorned with framed pictures of them and friends, certificates, and on a shelf on its own at head-level right next to the hallway entrance, he could make out two Nobel Prize medals and diplomas encased in a glass box.
"Oka...rin..." Kurisu attempted to call for Okabe's attention, accidentally using the name she already promised herself she would only use to refer to her husband. As a creature of habit, it was nearly impossible for her to keep this promise.
"You know," Okabe started, shifting his attention from the trophy case to where he would sit in the kotatsu. "I would have never fathomed you using that nickname for me."
"It's not a nickname for you," she snapped defensively as he sat across from her. "It's a nickname for the man you replaced."
"The man I 'replaced' being Okabe Rintaro," he jabbed back with an unnecessarily haughty retort. "In other words... me."
Okabe watched Kurisu's brow furrow in frustration. Yes, by Kurisu's standards, he wasn't the same man. He saved her and lived a long life with her from 2010 all the way to 2036, undoubtedly making countless memories - memories that he no longer had access to. However, if there was one thing he learned in his jumps across Alpha and Beta worldlines, it was that the emotional core of a person stayed the same no matter the experiences they went through. Working by those standards, then he could very well be the same man.
"So, how do you want to do this?" Okabe didn't know what tone to take with the woman before him, but he landed on frankness. "I'm sure we both have questions that need answering."
Kurisu looked back at him in equal earnestness. "We can trade off by asking a question and then answering the next. I'll start."
Before Okabe could get any word in, Kurisu immediately volunteered herself to ask the first question. Though he expected it based on what he remembered of her, there was a part of him that still needed to get used to speaking to the woman whose voice he nearly forgot after countless years.
"Why?" It was an accusatory question, but Okabe furrowed his brow, not knowing what was meant by it. Kurisu acknowledged his expression and expanded her question. "Why did you wait this long to overwrite yourself?"
Kurisu's violet eyes pierced through Okabe, stripping him down to his very core. He was tasked with grappling with the question while sitting there feeling exposed to her. Yes, given the choice, he would have very quickly jumped at the opportunity to overwrite himself the moment that the Steins Gate Worldline came into fruition in 2010. However, with the way Operation Skuld needed to play out, he had no choice.
"Actually..." he then remembered that he did have a choice back in 2025. "For a long time, I didn't plan to see the shift into Steins Gate."
Kurisu leaned back, her eyes telling him that his answer was not in her list of possibilities. This was a reaction that beckoned an explanation. And thus, he provided one. He told her about what happened in the Beta Worldline, specifically how much of the development of the first time machine was centered around the rescue of Mayuri and Suzuha. He told her about his plans of leaving himself to die in the distant past, but then got convinced by the girls to at least try fighting to see the worldline shift. His main goal switched to ensuring that Operation Skuld was successful, but in that goal, he lost sight of the repercussions that would come with the operation's completion - the total loss of 26 years of memories. He berated himself, opening up about his last day on the Alpha Worldline where the Alpha version of Kurisu, in spite of the fate that awaited her if the worldline shifted to Beta, was able to sacrifice herself for his sake. He lamented over the fact that he couldn't do the same and fight his own selfish desire to see the worldline shift.
"You were far stronger at 18 than I could ever hope to be," the bitterness he held for himself made itself apparent. "I'm sorry my own weakness caused this."
Kurisu, gripped by the way this version of Okabe told his story, felt a pang of sadness in her heart. She never expected him to own up to what he did as quickly as he did with the remorse he showed. This man had a human desire to see things through - an obsessive desire that her husband was very well-known for was what caused all of this to happen. She hated that every few seconds she saw her Okarin from within this Okabe. Naturally, her instincts to comfort him kicked into high gear once she saw him hang his head.
"Hey, hey," Kurisu reached across the kotatsu and propped his chin up with her fingers. "That is not your weakness. It's your greatest strength. I'm here, alive and breathing, because of that strength."
All Okabe could manage was a shy smile as the warmth of her hand connected with his face. The Kurisu Makise he knew was an obstinate tsundere, so this level of comfort he - a stranger to her at best - got from her was nowhere near expected. He took her hand and set it back down on her side of the kotatsu. As far as he knew, he was currently undeserving of the care she showed.
Kurisu's lips thinned as she took her hand back. In spite of everything that reminded her of her husband, this man wasn't him. Her brain recognized this, but her heart ached seeing the shell of the person she loved reject her attempt at comfort. She kept it together as best she could. If she allowed herself to get emotional, she would run the risk of waking up their children and being forced to explain the situation to them while she was still grappling with it.
"My turn," Okabe began his own question, his mood slightly improved. "Have I..."
His voice trailed off as his eyes flitted toward the wall behind Kurisu that contained many happy framed pictures of the couple. His gaze then landed on what he could only assume was their wedding photo - him in a black shirt with a white jacket that had a rose pinned into it, and Kurisu in a beautiful long-sleeved white wedding dress with her veil lifted over a small gold circlet. "...Have I been good to you?"
Kurisu's tears nearly leaked out of her the moment he finished his question. Of course he was! I couldn't have asked for a more perfect man, she thought. However, an answer like that would not have sufficed for someone who knew absolutely nothing. Okabe, on the other hand, tried to keep himself from fidgeting as this was the main question on his mind the minute he confirmed that she was indeed Kurisu.
"I don't know how much you know about what it was like for me growing up," after some contemplation, Kurisu slowly formulated her answer. "I was always chasing my dad, yearning for his attention whether it be through challenging his theories, or creating my own to debate with him. He made me fall in love with science and, for a time, that love for science was only kept alive by my desire to show him how much of a good girl I was."
Okabe ensured that his attention never fled elsewhere. He allowed himself to be gripped by Kurisu's story even if it was a conversation they already shared in the Alpha Worldline.
"When he... when he showed me just how much he actually hated the things I did to get his attention, I almost gave up on science. But Okarin... Okarin was the one that saved me... in more ways than one."
Okabe felt stabs in his heart each time she referred to "Okarin" as a different person from him. Despite the pain her story began to put him through, he let her continue.
"He brought me to the Future Gadget Lab after everything that happened, showing me all of the silly gadgets and inventions that he and Daru cooked up. He challenged me on different topics of physics and neuroscience just for the sake of arguing with me. He couldn't be considered any better than a child... but only he could revive the childlike wonder that I lost over the course of my time at Viktor Chondria and the issues I had with my dad."
Okabe thought back to the time Kurisu was first vulnerable with him on the Alpha Worldline. Much of the same was said - the Future Gadget Lab, unlike her professional lab in America, was just fun to be in.
"Not once did I ever yearn for Okarin's love and attention - he was always there to provide it. Not once did he make me feel disheartened with how I approached different theories - he just encouraged it. Not once did he ever let me feel like I was alone. In every sense of the word... Okabe Rintaro saved me."
Kurisu looked up, seeing the pain in Okabe's eyes despite the soft smile he wore. "But he couldn't have done it without you. He only recently told me what exactly transpired when he saved me at Radio Kaikan, but he gave you all the credit for pushing him to try."
"I devoted my whole life to it," Okabe said, his voice small. "The main goal behind everything I did was to save you, Kurisu. I'm beyond happy that I was able to guide myself toward the right path in saving you. But I'm just as sad knowing that you don't see me in spite of the memories I have."
"I don't know all the details of what you went through in the Beta Worldline," Kurisu quickly fired back. "But just the summarized version you gave me is enough to tell me that what you experienced will have developed a different person from the Okarin who loved me with all his heart for 26 years."
"You think I don't?" The severity at which Okabe snapped at Kurisu surprised her. "For just over two decades on this worldline, Okabe Rintaro loved you dearly. For what could have been just over two decades on the Beta Worldline, I put myself through unimaginable horrors because I loved you dearly. You - on a worldline where many merely considered you a genius scientist taken away from the world in the prime of her life - were my universe... the obsession I chased through countless loops."
"If there was ever a time where I faltered - where I thought about giving up, I just thought of you. The way your lips creased whenever I annoyed you; the way your voice would go up an octave when you started explaining a theory you were excited about; the way your eyes shone as bright as the stars themselves when you recounted the fun things you did with Mayuri. I chased you across worldlines, nearly getting myself killed multiple times in the process, because I could never let myself live in a world without you."
Kurisu's eyes widened, recognizing the exact same thing she heard many years ago and felt tears begin to work their way down her cheeks. Her mind was then brought back to her husband's final words before being overwritten. She recalled the surety with which he stated that the strength of his love would never falter regardless of the memories he had. The man before her was inadvertently proving his hypothesis correct beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Tears also welled into Okabe's eyes as they darted back and forth across the kotatsu, never meeting Kurisu's gaze.
"And now that I have you here with me..." his voice faltered momentarily. "...You don't see me."
"O-" Kurisu tried to speak, but Okabe cut her off once again without intending to.
"I can never atone for what I did to you in coming to this worldline. Forcing you to live with memories that I can't recall... it's a fate I could never wish upon anyone - much less the woman I devoted my life to. It seems like, for once, my Reading Steiner had adverse effects for everyone involved."
Okabe never noticed it, but his hands must have been clenched atop the kotatsu. The only reason why he even began to feel them relaxing was because Kurisu placed her own hands over his fists. All he could do was look up and he was met with the sight of a Kurisu whose cheeks were stained with tears, but had the most beautiful smile he had ever seen in his life.
"I see you, Okarin..." her face contorted as she was hit by waves of grief and happiness. "I see you for who you truly are."
Okabe wanted to be happy, but he was just stuck in a state of shock and guilt. From his point of view, Kurisu might have just been trying to make him feel better, but the rawness of her emotions quickly debunked that theory. He fully unclenched his hands so that he could interlock his fingers with hers. For a couple moments, they sat there, hands clasped together in complete silence while Kurisu worked through her feelings.
"To think that the strength of your love and attentiveness could span across worldlines like that," she laughed, freeing up one of her hands to wipe her tears.
"Well, you were the one that initially proposed the theory," Okabe admitted. Much to his surprise, Kurisu cocked her head, not knowing anything about what he meant.
"Okarin— you made me promise to never get involved with anything related to time travel after what happened at Radio Kaikan," Kurisu nearly referred to her husband as a separate entity again, but she did her best to recover. "Wherever you could, you kept the whole matter of worldlines to yourself."
"That makes sense," Okabe nodded. "I'm sure I didn't want to run the risk of you turning into someone that could accidentally pull us back into the Beta Worldline. But for the purposes of this story, let me tell you about the last night we spent together in the Alpha Worldline."
From there, Okabe told Kurisu everything that happened on that day. How he sought her out at the Radio Building after finding out that the final step in the process of returning the world to the Beta Worldline was to sacrifice her. He found her on the rooftop and they talked about her death and the weird feeling of déjà vu she got when she came across the room she died in. After a matter of weather-related incidents, the closeness they shared pushed him to keep trying to find another way that didn't involve sacrificing her, but she stopped him before he could time-leap away. It was in this conversation that she proposed that perhaps there were multiple different copies of her across multiple worldlines whose minds and feelings connected to form a singular "her". While it may have just been something said to help the both of them cope with the difficult decision, both Okabe and Kurisu now believed that perhaps there was a truth to her Alpha version's comforting words.
After a few moments of digesting the story, Kurisu finally spoke. "Thank you for sharing that story, Okarin. Just a small glimpse like this tells me just how much you struggled in that worldline. I'm sorry I was such a driving force for your pain."
Okabe shook his head vehemently. "Nonsense. We're here now and that's all that matters."
After a couple more moments, Kurisu completely released her hands from his, ready to bring up a topic that she didn't know how he'd react to.
"Before your memories were replaced with those of the Beta Worldline," she started slowly. "You told me of a potential way to recover your memories of this worldline without completely deleting who you were from the Beta Worldline."
Okabe listened intently, surprised at how much thought his past self put into this process, yet ecstatic to know that there was perhaps a way to be that person for Kurisu once more.
"You didn't know exactly how it was supposed to work," Okabe's excitement quickly plummeted at Kurisu's admission. "But the one lead you gave me was with regard to Amadeus."
Kurisu was about to explain what Amadeus was to Okabe as she didn't know if he ever came across it in the Beta Worldline, but before she could get a word of explanation out, he followed her train of thought.
"Did I ever back up my memories into Amadeus?"
So he knew. Just what happened on that worldline?
She nodded. "As recently as two months ago."
"Do we know if the memories of Amadeus are affected by Reading Steiner?"
"That's what he wanted to find out."
Okabe smiled, prompting Kurisu to smile. They were both on the same page, much like they usually were for the past 26 years.
"Can we check right now?" Okabe asked. "There's an app for it, right?"
"There is," Kurisu sighed, "But we put Amadeus under scheduled maintenance until 6AM while Daru ensures the firewall is operating at peak efficiency. Someone once hacked into the server back in 2010 and deleted everything we had, so we don't ever want a repeat of that."
Okabe grimaced at the thought of Amadeus' deletion. The only reason why the firewall was cracked was because they gave Daru's past self the key to override it and delete everything related to the project. It was a necessary step in ensuring the completion of Operation Arc-light, but he couldn't imagine the grief and frustration that Kurisu and Maho went through in this worldline.
Seeing just how lost in thought Okabe was over an innocuous statement, Kurisu prodded further. "You don't happen to know anything about what happened in that time, do you Okarin? I mean it was so long ago..."
Okabe felt a bead of sweat form on his brow as the heat in the room intensified due to Kurisu's gaze. "I... uh - I don't know what you're even talking about..."
She caught him. "Spill it. It was forever ago and you helped us perfect the project. It'd be silly to hold a grudge."
"If you say so..." Okabe eyed Kurisu carefully as he explained exactly what happened and why it needed to happen. At first she did seem very angry and ready to go back on her word, but once he explained the reasoning, she calmed down and nodded her head.
"See? That wasn't so hard," Kurisu let out a satisfied smile.
At that Kurisu yawned, then looked at the time which read 3:06AM. "Gosh it's getting late. You must be tired too, no?"
"Now that the adrenaline from the initial jump is wearing off, my body feels like it's relaxing for the first time since 2011." Okabe followed her lead and yawned, stretching his arms upwards as he did so.
"Then, let's be off to bed," she said. "Shall we?"
She got up and out of the kotatsu and extended her hand to Okabe to help him out of it.
Okabe hesitated. "Are you sure you don't want me to sleep on the couch or something? As I am now, I'd just be a stranger in your bed..."
"You are my husband," Kurisu said for the first time out loud. "Just because you don't recognize it doesn't mean that I don't either."
Okabe smiled at just how well Kurisu was taking things in stride. Perhaps being 44 and not 18 allowed her to have a better handle on her emotions. Or perhaps the hope that she retained for getting his past memories back kept her in good spirits. For now, he wouldn't know, but he was more than happy to oblige her. He grabbed her hand, letting her guide him towards the hallway, however before they even took three steps, she abruptly came to a stop. Following her shocked stare in the direction of the hallway, he saw two heads stacked atop each other poking out of its entrance. Both heads had chestnut hair and dark-colored eyes, the one on the bottom looking more feminine than the one on top. He stared at them and they stared back, almost as if analyzing him down to the way he stood.
"Reina, Haruki!" Kurisu hissed in English. "What are you two doing up?"
Okabe sat confused. He could understand and speak English since that was the common language used to communicate with other rebel factions in the wasteland of the Beta Worldline, but why the switch from Japanese? Who were these children to them? American nephews that they had to take care of? Kurisu's long-lost siblings (though she looked WAY too old for that)? He did his best to figure out what their features reminded him of, but he was drawing a blank.
"We heard a whole lot of movement earlier and then you came back and started sniffling Mama," the girl responded in English, her voice sounding like a young Kurisu's.
Mama?
"But most importantly," the boy got out of his lowered spot to face the two squarely.
He was a lanky kid who still seemed to have room to grow. As he stood, he was about a head shorter than Okabe. His voice was also on the deeper side, meaning he was knee-deep into adolescence. Reina joined her brother, revealing her own height which was about half a head shorter than her brother - slightly taller than her mother. The way she carried herself reminded Okabe so much of Kurisu when he first met her. They wore near-identical PJs, though the main difference was that Haruki's pants were a blue plaid while Reina's were more on the pink side. And while Haruki seemed content to merely wear a t-shirt as his top, Reina went a step further and had on what looked like a gray blanket that acted as a poncho.
Okabe regarded them both, feeling familiarity form deep within his stomach, but he couldn't quite place where exactly the feeling was coming from. He waited while Haruki seemed intent on pausing for dramatic effect.
"What's this we're hearing about Papa losing his memories?"
It all finally clicked.
On the Steins Gate Worldline, the Okabes were the parents of two teenage kids. For the first time, his Beta Worldline self met Reina and Haruki Okabe, otherwise known as Amaterasu Kiyoko and Arakawa Masamune - the pair that Hououin Kyouma dubbed "The Twin-Star Scientists".
A/N: And so, we've reached the end of yet another chapter in the books of this story's overhaul. This rewrite has been a lot of fun and I hope you dear readers are having as much of a good time consuming it as I am producing it. I am open to any and all feedback, though! I may be mostly done with the story, but if there are things that make sense to keep track of that I originally didn't, I would very much like to know!
Anyways, I shall see you all next week for the next chapter titled: The Twin-Star Scientists.
Quil~