Eloise Hawking perched primly at the head of the small dining room table, and Richard stopped himself from shaking his head in wonder at the complete transformation she'd undergone. For as long as he'd known her, she'd been slogging around the Island in boots and rags, her hair a tangled mess. Now, her stocking-clad legs crossed neatly at her ankles, her hair combed back into a braided bun that only let loose a few stray whisps, and the heels on her black pumps so thin that they would have broken within seconds of coming into contact with the Island.
The pencil skirt and blouse especially proclaimed her womanhood, a sound contrast to her rough-and-tumble tomboy days. Well, if kidnapping and murder classed someone as a tomboy. She'd always made a point of holding her own with the boys, especially her sometime-lover Charles Widmore. Now, she meant to hold her own in a completely different sphere.
"So, you're a scientist now."
"I'm learning," Eloise replied with a slight purse of the thin lips now coated with soft pink lipstick. "I'm quite promising, my teachers tell me, but I am starting rather late."
Richard nodded sympathetically. "The Island didn't give you much of a chance to improve your mind."
"It's not actually my mind I'm concerned with. It's Daniel's. I need to learn so that I can drive him forward to his destiny."
This gave Richard some pause. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair and sipped at his coffee, recalling Daniel's destiny quite vividly. As an adult, he would apparently travel back in time to ten years before that moment where the two Islanders studiously avoided looking into each others' eyes. Eloise would then accidentally kill him as he attempted an ill-advised mission to alter time. "He wanted to change our future, his past."
"Exactly, and he must be prepared to get to that point."
"He doesn't succeed, Eloise," Richard said insistently, worry creeping into his voice. "Why should you force him to try something that won't work? Something that will kill him? Worse, something that will make you kill him?"
She countered his argument with a brief shake of her head, and then she said, "It's already done. He's already died, and I can't change it. I just know that he's meant to become a physicist, and he's meant to go to that Island. It's going to happen, so why fight it? If I tried, I would only fail, and I would waste what valuable time he has. I refuse to waste my son."
"I guess I know which side you come down on in the Great Fate Debate," he said, referring to the constant Island argument over Fate vs. Free Will. Before Richard could continue that train of thought, the soft patter of feet alerted him to another presence in the house. "He's here now?" Richard hissed, rising to his feet. "He can't meet me yet."
"Why not? But don't worry; he won't notice you're here." The hard edges of Eloise's face softened as it turned in the direction of the sound. "He must have finished his homework." A second later, Richard heard the strains of a nearby piano, working through something unsettlingly discordant but obviously intentional. Then her expression snapped back into place. "I'm sorry, Richard, but you don't really have a say in how I raise my son. If anything, you should be encouraging me when it gets difficult. After all, the Island wanted Daniel to die when he did, so that should be what you want as well. Now, you came to talk business." As Richard could only stare at her and her callousness, he couldn't manage a response. "The Lamp Post," she prompted.
"Oh, right." Richard cleared his throat, put on his reading glasses, and opened the folder in front of him. But he couldn't really concentrate. That background soundtrack provided by the piano jarred his nerves. "Actually, I just remembered another appointment. Can we do this another day?"
She raised a thin eyebrow skeptically. "Whenever's convenient to you. You know where I'll be."
Richard removed his glasses again, scooped up the documents he'd come to review, and dumped the lot in his briefcase. He exited the house with a brief wave to the unnervingly callous woman who seemed to love the Island more than her own son. He couldn't fault her decision, but he wasn't going to praise her, either. He only said, "I'll be in touch," and then he was gone.
The piano played on.