Lili finished her breakfast in silence, but it only took a moment before she couldn’t help turning her eyes back toward Jared. He still sat ten or so feet off from the fire, having since returned his attention to whatever project he had been inspired to start that morning, though his content humming hadn’t resumed. She sighed slightly before pushing herself up from her seat to slowly move to a spot behind him as he worked.

“Yes?” he couldn’t help a small smile as he felt her continued gaze on him still, a few moments later.

“What are you making, anyway?” she replied quietly.

“Don’t know if it’s so much making as trying to make.” he allowed another slight smile, “I was thinking of trying to make a crib.” he answered, moving on once she quickly turned her eyes downwards in response, “I figured since we don’t really have a lot to work with, and since carpentry isn’t really one of my skills, I should get a head start.” he shrugged as he looked back toward his progress so far.

Lili took a seat nearby, and watched him work for several long moments before she had to speak up again, “Ok, I admit it.”

“And what are we admitting?” he asked as he glanced back at her with a raise of his brow.

“I’m a control freak. I always have been. I always will be.”

Jared seemed a little perplexed by her so-called confession and allowed a moment before saying anything in return, “Odd, you almost always let me be on top.” he couldn’t help teasing.

“Ha ha.” she returned sarcastically before continuing, “I mean it though. I always have to know all I can possibly know about what to expect, what to prepare for. I feel completely out of control when I don’t.”

“Really? Imagine that.” Jared returned, with a pointed lack of shock to hearing her words, which he was obviously already well aware of.

Lili just scoffed and shook her head before adopting the same serious tone, “Problem being that I also have really, really huge issues with anxiety.”

“And the shocking confessions keep coming.” he couldn’t help teasing with a little smirk.

“These two things are a pretty impossible combination to live with most of the time.” Lili then added, “Which I’m sure is a real shock to you as well, right?” another slight scoff.

“Yes, Lili, I have caught on to both of those facts. Which is why it’s always so difficult for me to ever be sure how or what to tell you. I wanna be completely honest with you, but I’m so afraid that anything I say will just make things that much worse for you.” he admitted, his own tone finally matching the seriousness of hers.

“It’s just, I have to try and find out everything I can, and I know that every time I do that, it just gives me that many more reasons to worry.” she sighed again, “But, I guess I’m even more terrified of the unknown. Cause when I don’t know what’s coming, what I imagine….it’s just bad.” she whispered.

Jared allowed another sigh as he moved from the pieces of wood and vine and placed his hands over hers, “Ok, so what is it that you want me to tell you, that I haven’t already?”

Lili took a breath as she tried to determine how to go about asking him for the other details of the vision that she couldn’t help wondering about, “Ok, so three years.” she swallowed slightly.

“Yes. Three years.” he quietly agreed.

“And you saw the baby, this baby, at three years old?”

“Looked to be about that.”

“So, you know.”

“Know what?” Jared asked slowly.

“For starters,” she swallowed again, “whether it’s a boy or a girl?”

Jared smiled slightly, “Well, yes.” he then shook his head, “But you’re almost five months pregnant. In a couple weeks, we could have most likely even determined that much with just my medical abilities, rather than my psychic ones.” he assured, “I wasn’t sure whether or not you did wanna know, though. That’s why I didn’t say anything.”

Lili took another breath, “I’m not sure if I wanna know either, but you obviously do, already.”

Jared shook his head again, “You can’t tell me you’re actually even having anxiety about the gender of the baby, too?” he chided.

“I have anxiety about everything, Jared.” she repeated, which did cause his expression to return to seriousness once more, “And the gender of the baby, it is a big deal. Very big.”

Jared narrowed his eyes again as he pondered her statement, “How do you mean, exactly?”

Lili sighed once more, “If it’s a boy…then he’s eventually going to end up here all alone, with no one else to ever be close to, like that.” she stated softly, but forced herself onward before Jared could respond, “And if it’s a girl….god that means so very, very much as well.” she began breathily.

“Go on.” Jared pressed, though gently.

“If it’s a girl, then someday she’ll be the last woman on the planet. And all this pressure that’s nearly killing me, it’ll all fall on my daughter’s shoulders instead. Eventually, anyway. Never mind, other factors.” she couldn’t help adding, but quickly continued, “And I don’t want my son to end up all alone and I don’t want my daughter to end up ever feeling the way that I feel right now. And I honestly, can’t decide which of those two outcomes would really be worse. Cause they’re both pretty damn horrible.” she finished with a slight break to her voice once again.

Jared took another long breath as he thought about her words, “But I did only see three years into the future. You don’t know for sure that either of those realities will actually come true, Lili.”

“How could they not?” Lili denied, though in the same weak whisper, “The only way that my child would end up not being alone is if I had more children, and that….” she just shook her head, seeming more than terrified by the very thought of going through this all again, and forced herself to move on again, “And even if I did have any other children, it still wouldn’t allow our species to continue, not really. Odd how the people who believe in that little creation story never figured that one out. I mean, who the hell were Cain and Abel supposed to have kids with, anyway? Their mom or their sisters?” she scoffed as she wiped away another tear.

“Biblical fictions aside,” Jared began as he squeezed her hands again, “there is one possibility that you’re overlooking.”

“Yes, I know, that Cain and Abel shagged Adam’s first wife, Lilith. Though of course, good little Christians aren’t supposed to even know about her after all the ‘editing.’”

Jared just shook his head, forcing back the tiniest smile, “I actually wasn’t referring to that family tree.” he assured her as she simply narrowed her eyes at him, “I was talking about the possibility that your child, or even children, won’t actually end up alone, after all.”

“How do you figure that one?” she asked him skeptically.

“We could always find other people, remember?”

Lili scoffed loudly, “Where have you been for the last seven months? Cause I’ve been here.” she retorted, angrily gesturing to their surroundings.

“Remember, we’re still looking for the ship, and survivors.”

“And I think we’ve established the likelihood of that happening any time soon, haven’t we?” she scoffed again, though quietly.

“And then there’s always…” Jared began as he looked down.

“Always what?” she asked with further skepticism.

“Remember that other vision I told you about, a long time ago. The other person I saw here. We might not be alone here, after all.”

Lili shook her head once more, “The vision you only got in glimpses, the one where you couldn’t even tell a gender or a time frame? I’m sorry, Jared, but I’m not sure how much faith I wanna put in that.”

That was when Jared took a deep breath, “But I saw that person again, right before we found the pod.”

“And did you get a time frame, that time?”

“Present, maybe?” he asked with a shrug.

“And you sound so sure.” Lili called him on his hesitation.

“Like I said, I didn’t quite understand it the last time I saw this person, but now, I’m not sure it was even a vision, honestly.”

“What do you mean you’re not sure if it was a vision? What else would it have been?” Lili asked warily.

“Reality?” he suggested with a breath.

“Reality?” she repeated the word more slowly.

“It wasn’t like any of my other visions. It was like he, she, they, were right there in front of me, almost as close as you are right now.” he admitted.

“And you didn’t think to tell anyone this?” Lili asked, her jaw dropped slightly.

“Like I said, I didn’t understand it at the time, and they disappeared so quick, with no trace. It was almost like a ghost, or my imagination, or something.” he then took a breath, “So I wrote it off as my visions just changing the way they appeared to me, cause, that was actually easier to believe. Then we found the pod, and we knew that someone had actually been here before us. Then I started thinking about other things that have happened since we got here.”

“What other things?” Lili stammered a bit.

“Remember when we first found the river?”

“What about it?” she asked.

“Remember, we were all asleep, and yet the fire stayed lit all night. And none of us had kept it lit, but we all just blew it off, cause we couldn’t possibly have company here, right? And then, like I said. I saw this person again, and we found the other pod, and those remains, and….” he just shook his head, “And I can’t help thinking that maybe we aren’t alone here, after all.” he repeated again, though in a whisper.

“So, if you really think someone else is here,” Lili began, taking another ragged breath, “I’m not really sure that that makes me feel very non-anxious, either.” she said as she inadvertently looked around at the surrounding woods.

“But they kept the fire lit. We were all asleep and they got that close and actually did something to help us, not harm us.”

“But you don’t know that for a fact.” Lili denied, though weakly.

“It’s a pretty solid assumption.” Jared replied softly, “And I saw this person, a young male, I think, in those glimpses for a reason. And when I think I saw him face to face at last, he didn’t try to hurt me then, either.”

“What did he do?”

“All he did was ask me why. Then he vanished, before Ian even saw him.”

“Why what?” Lili shook her head again, trying to take all this in as he shared it.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out ever since the day we found that pod, and I began to think that he may have been a lot more real than any vision, after all.” Jared told her with another soft sigh.

Lili was quiet for a long moment, continuing to maul over Jared’s words before finally finding more of her own, “So, does that mean that it’s him we’re supposed to find, instead of the ship?”

“I don’t know. But it seems like he already found us, remember?”

“But then, if he actually doesn’t wanna hurt us, why did he just ask you that and vanish? Why didn’t he stay and explain what ‘why’ even meant, or to find out whatever answer he was asking for? Why did he just keep our fire going instead of letting us know, back then, that he was even here at all?”

“I’m not the mind-reader, remember? But if he was all alone here, and then we arrived…I mean, put yourself in that position. What would you do? Would you rush right up to a group of strangers and make introductions? Or would you watch, and wait, and see what they wanted…and try to find out ‘why’ they were even here?”

“So, you think he’s been watching us, all this time?” Lili asked, her voice shaky once again.

“It’s possible. And maybe when we were about to find the pod, and realize that there was a possibility that someone else was here after all, he figured that was when he should make himself known. At least to one of us.” Jared shrugged slightly.

“And he picked you? And then he disappeared before Ian even saw him?”

“Well, if he’s been watching us, then he probably knows that Ian is more the shoot first ask questions later type, or…”

“Or what?”

“Or maybe he knew, somehow, that I had already seen him, in my head, before I ever saw him in reality.”

Lili looked around nervously once more, “And I’m not sure which of those is scarier: That he’s been watching us for seven months, or that he could somehow know that you already knew about him.”