What is it that makes us human? Death, certainly, that distinguished us from the gods. But other than death, what else did we have to call ourselves human beings? More than that, what was it each one of us had in able to differ ourselves from the others of our race? Was it our dreams, our hopes? Our beliefs? The ability of our mind to think possibilities, to think we could do anything?

Maybe. Two hundred years ago, no man would ever have considered walking on the moon. And it was possible to travel through time itself.

As a scientist, Makise Kurisu was fascinated by the ability of a human brain to perform deeds other brains couldn't comprehend, to be responsive to the minimal of impulses triggering a unforeseeable chain of reactions.

As a person, Makise Kurisu was sometimes creeped out by the weirdness that reigned in other peoples heads.

At the beginning, she had wearily eyed that weird group Okabe Rintarou claimed to be the leader of, now the Future Gadget Lab have her a feeling of recognition she had long since in vain sought for in her own family.

She didn't believe in fate. Especially not since what she had experienced with her own mind and eyes that whatever you did, it always had consequences that not only affected the small part of the world you yourself lived in. So it was weird to think that in probably more than fifty percent of the existing timelines she ended up titled as member number 004 in the small apartment of a self proclaimed mad scientist. Not that she would admit it in front of witnesses, but she obviously wouldn't have it any other way.

In science, you couldn't come very far if you hadn't at least failed properly a hundred times. All the failures, all the mistakes you did were the essence of your experience, the bases of your skills and knowledge, she had learned that the hard way.

And she still made mistakes of course, not only in science, the difference this time was that she wasn't alone in making them. Through all the varieties of world lines she could imagine, it was never complete without Okabe.

If you viewed life as an everlasting equation to whose both sides something like fate is always adding something, taking something away, dividing and multiplying it, shifting from side to side, then there was always her own golden rule: handling the variable last.

Throughout most of the operation it would stand there, firm on its side while everything around it was removed or shifted around. And in the end, it stood there alone. Still, that was the part she wanted to change, because needless to say that Okabe was the x in her equation, but that she didn't want him to go through that pain of obliterating solitude too, felt lonely at times, when she thought too much and rolled it over in her head for hours on end because she couldn't get behind it. But then it would always be Okabe sitting next to her in the darkened lab where the dust danced around and the lights never worked.

He always made her snap out of it and lift her mood, even though his maniacal laughter did sometimes get the better of her . But she mostly ended up kissing him for it anyway. No regrets. He was a good kisser after all. And she knew he knew this was her way of sneaking around her pride to say thank you.

She didn't believe it was only the dreams and hopes and so on that made us human. More so, it was the mistakes, the mistakes made, but better yet the mistakes learned from.

However, loving Okabe Rintarou had never been a mistake. No matter which timeline.