The years sped by. Sam had no idea how. One minute Stasia was the tiniest most precious thing he'd ever seen. The next she was growing chubby and constantly casting them wide eyed gummy smiles. Then she was pulling herself up onto her feet, literally trying to run before she could walk, no longer content to be held in their arms when there was always something to reach for. Next came the words and her constant questions about the world around her.

Then in the blink of an eye she was up, dressed and full of smiles, ready for the walk down the hill with her mom for her first day of school.

Little Stasia was the center of their universe and daily she brought them hours of joy and love. Her soft curly hair and affectionate nature made her a dream to be around even though her cheeky mischievous streak sometimes got her into trouble.

But Sam clearly remembered the day he came to realize the way that things were eventually going to go with her. He was sat on the beach with Mercedes and a four year old Stasia. They did it often and it was great bonding time with their daughter. This time, however, Stasia was far more thoughtful. She seemed distracted while building her sandcastles and kept looking out into the water. The reason was the big ship which was leaving the harbor.

"What's that?"

"It's a big boat."

"Where's it going?"

"Across the Sea."

"What's across the Sea?"

"I don't know." It wasn't a lie. They didn't know that lay across the sea. Mercedes said that occasionally, boats came with people who'd come from across the Sea, from a land where there were no Sectors. They would always leave again on the first boat back across the water. None of the visitors ever stayed. Sam found it hard to imagine a world without Sectors, but then he'd also struggled with the concept of there being a world Outside of Sectors, yet clearly there was.

Mercedes didn't find it a stretch to believe it at all. She constantly explained to him that the world as they knew it wasn't always in Sectors. The bible was written during a time when there were no Sectors and people had travelled the Seas freely. Then something had happened. Nobody seemed to know what, but the Sectors and Transit Sectors were built and designed by somebody and people were divided up into their respective physical groups for a reason. Even the fact that all the Transit Sectors were the same indicated the setup was specifically designed at some point. Somewhere there had to be a blueprint for the way in which their land was set up.

"I want to go in a boat across the Sea." They were simple words, spoken by a child but they cut Sam deeply. He looked at his wife who shared his shock, but hers also held an acceptance he found hard to find in himself. He leaned forward and kissed his little girl on her sandy cheek. "You need to grow up first sweetie!"

She looked up and him with eyes wide with anticipation and hope. "But when I'm big can I go on the boat?"

Sam shot a worried look towards Mercedes who just smiled and shrugged before replying herself. "Sure you can baby. When you're all grown up you can do whatever you like with your life."

The answer made Sam sad. In that moment he felt like he was already losing a part of his daughter before he'd had the chance to fully enjoy her presence.

That night, as Sam climbed into bed and pulled Mercedes into his arms he sighed. "You know we're going to lose our little girl to the Sea. I can see it in her eyes already."

"I know." Mercedes snuggled up closer to him.

"I blame you. She inherited your wanderlust!"

"I would say I'm sorry but I'm not. I can understand her. By her age I already knew I was different."

Sam paused. He sensed that everything was already or if his control. "Stasia has Perception, doesn't she."

Mercedes was quiet. "I think so. I don't know for sure but there's been things she'd said and done while we're on the beach that made me suspect it. When you know, you know, and nothing can change that. And when you get that desire it burns so bright you feel nothing else. If she wants to travel across the Sea then she's going to have to do it. If things were different I'd be tempted to go with her, but I like it here. I'm happy, and I really mean it when I say that. I have you, I have Stasia and I have the Sea. They're the three things I've always wanted." She tilted her head upwards and kissed him deeply. "How did we manage to create a little girl so beautiful and clever?"

"She got it all from you baby. But I feel like I already have to start preparing my heart right now for her to leave us."

"Me too. My only wish is that she can find someone like you to be with her and protect her."

Sam raised himself onto one elbow. "No man isever going near Stasia!"

"That's what my dad used to say about me!"

"And yet now I get to make you scream on the regular…"

She giggled softly. "Yeah, you do."

Sam flipped their positions, pulling her on top of him, then palmed her breasts as he moved the strap of her nightdress with his teeth. "So how about we keep going with our 'plan b' to give our girl a brother to look out for her…"

Mercedes slid her hand into the pants of his pajamas to find him hard and ready for her. "Hmmm… I think I like your way of thinking darling…" Lifting her nightdress she straddled him, sighing contentedly as she slid down onto his familiar length and rocked her hips in a way that was guaranteed to squeeze every drop of seed from him within minutes.

The years passed but no little brother or sister came along. It was hard for them, especially Mercedes, but they decided to focus on finding joy in the miracle child that they'd already been blessed with rather than lamenting what they didn't have. Their daughter grew fast and she grew more and more beautiful with each passing day.

Stasia Evans was a social butterfly who got on with everybody. She was highly talented, artistic like her father and intelligent like her mother. At a young age her reading ability far outstripped Sam's, much to his embarrassment. He would sit and listen to Mercedes help her with her homework and despite the fact that she'd taught him well, still felt inadequate for his lack of natural ability with words. Thankfully they reached an unspoken agreement that whenever homework involved the written word, mommy would be there to help, but when it was art, that was definitely daddy's domain, because try as she might, much to the amusement of father and daughter, Mercedes's art skills left a lot to be desired. Even her stick men managed to look alien. The only drawings that seemed to work for her were her clothes designs and even then she preferred to test them out on actual fabric prototypes rather than simply draw. Her business had continued to flourish and she was able to employ actual designers to handle that part of things as her business grew. Sam still worked alone, but had reached a point where he was able to command a higher price for his work and could be far more selective with his commissions.

Stasia loved spending time with her parents but she also loved her friends in the Sector Center. Hard as it was, her parents knew that their solitary life in the house on top of the hill wasn't normal, and did their best to make sure that their child was integrated and in no way viewed as being different. Sam had worried that her unusual heritage would count against her in some way, but thankfully, the Sea Sectors were where people came when they wanted to escape the stifling lives of their own home Sectors and she was one of many Mixed Sector children in the locality. There were various different combinations and her view of the world was a much broader one than either of her parents had had when they were her age. She would often go to sleepovers at the homes of friends and occasionally would even bring friends up to the house. Sam didn't mind visitors in small amounts but found too many people at one time overwhelming. Mercedes loved having children around, but once they left she would get sad that she had only one and Sam would comfort her as best he could.

A house full of children just was not to be for them, but they were eternally grateful for the opportunity that they'd been given to become parents, using the opportunity to continue to work on their own relationship rather than allowing the unfulfilled desire for more children to pull them down.

One thing Stasia never lost was her desire to cross the Sea. Sometimes she'd sit with Sam at the top of the hill where he did most of his painting and sketch along with him. But right from the start, in her pictures of the sea she'd often put a boat into the scene, even though the water in front of her was empty. He asked her about it once but she couldn't explain it. Mercedes then told him that there were other ships in the water. For some reason he only saw the ones that docked in their Sector, but she and Stasia were also able to see the ones further in the distance which were travelling to dock in one of the other Sea Sectors. At this point nothing surprised him about their visual abilities when it came to Perception. He understood that it was on a need to know basis and as he wasn't planning on breaking his exile and leaving their home on the hill he didn't need to know.

By the time Stasia was a preteen, every other sentence was preceded with 'One day, when I've crossed the Sea, I'll…' They accepted it but Sam didn't have to like it. This was all moving too fast. Stasia was, and always would be, the center of their universe.

The other thing that Sam didn't like was the fact that she was beautiful. Stunningly beautiful. Her unusual colored eyes settled into more of a general hazel color but the shade appeared to change depending on what she was wearing. They permanently sparkled with laughter and her constant smiles. Her hair grew thick with curls which seemed both wild and tame at the same time. It had a softer texture than her mother's but was nothing like the kind of hair that his family had had. As the years progressed he still marveled at the fact that she had his eyes, nose and mouth yet still managed to look just like a paler version of Mercedes. She wasn't quite as soft as her mother in the figure but she still had more curves than the women from his Sector and the older she got, the more she learned how to dress to make them work for her.

Sam wasn't stupid, he knew that she would have plenty of male attention, he just didn't like to think about it so he pretended that she didn't. But he'd never met anyone like her. She was the definition of a free spirit. Everything about her personality was attractive. There was so much of her mother in her it was almost painful to watch. Stasia also radiated with an inner joy. Even when she was small she took pleasure in the simple little things, always fearlessly catching insects and small animals to secretly take care of as 'pets', before Mercedes would eventually find such creatures and scream the house down until Sam removed them then, leaving him the job of soothing the tears of a confused disappointed little girl. All the months spent outside sleeping in a tent had made Mercedes no more tolerant of creepy crawlies and she couldn't abide them in the house.

"Tell me again about when you lived Outside!" The story of her parents fascinated her. Obviously they'd told her a toned down version to protect Sam and his past she constantly longed to hear about what it was like travelling and living in a tent. She had friends whose parents had also spent time on the Outside, but as far as Sam and Mercedes were aware, they had been Outside and travelled the furthest. Their travels was something that wasn't spoken about in public. Most of the Sector residents remained oblivious to the Outside but those with Perception shared their stories behind closed doors. Mercedes came to appreciate just how blessed they had been. Their one encounter with the bear and the three day storm had been their only real experience of danger. Almost everyone else she'd spoken to mentioned the coyotes and after hearing stories of others who didn't fare as well as they had, Sam again struggled not to share his wife's opinion that someone or something had definitely been looking out for them during their journey.

On one occasion as a pre-teen, Stasia had taken it upon herself to go Outside, leaving her parents fraught with worry when they couldn't find her. The stress of it nearly killed Sam and Mercedes had had to explain to their daughter that if she got lost out there he would never be able to follow and find her. The Outside was not for playing and was filled with dangers of its own. From that day she promised never to go Outside alone. And it was only the fact that her obsession with the Sea being greater than her obsession with the Outside that reassured her she would be safe. There was no way they could afford to lose their only child.

But with all of her curiosities, she was still the best child they could ever have dreamed of having.

The teenage years were harder and it was a struggle to balance her independence with their desire to keep her as their baby. She was popular and had many friends and while he resented having to share her, he was glad to have helped to produce a fully functioning member of society.

She was a girl who made her parents proud!