She looks at him and her heart swells. She looks at him and her heart breaks. She looks at him and sees a very different face, the face of the man he will one day be. This face stares up at her in shock and fear. She looks on as life leaves it and all she can do is look at his face now and imagine— no, not imagine. She doesn't have to imagine. She knows. That little chubby face that smiles with ease at the wonders of life, one day she will cease that smile. She holds him anyway and teaches him all he needs. To walk, to talk, to count, to play. But still, she looks at him and she knows. She knows too much.

He takes to all and everything, science and music, linguistics and history. She's so very proud of him, but never tells him so. The face in the back of her mind was a physicist and so she molds one. She pushes him and pushes him and takes away all things frivolous. The piano, the music books, the toys, the paints. Soon when she looks at his face, she can see it's resemblance to the one in her mind. One day she looks at him and he's become that man from so long ago. She's always known it would happen.

And now that chubby face that smiled with ease is gone and it's her fault — except not in the way she thought. He's resentful and upset. But still a success, at least she has that. Then the accident happens and she hears about it from the other half of his genetic code. The life she pushed him into deteriorates his mind and leaves him broken. This she didn't know. How could she have known?

She looks at him and her heart swells. She looks at him and her heart breaks. She looks at him and it is the face of the man he has become. Will it make you proud of me? He asks and she feels the last strands of hope slip through her grasp. Yes, Daniel. It will. Time has won and taken him away from her, on a freighter that will carry him to the island. The island that will move through time. Time that will stop just long enough for their paths to cross on that fateful day.

You knew. You always knew. You knew this would happen and you sent me here anyway.

Yes. She had.