He is eventually presumed dead, devastating his wife Marika and his young son Erol.

Twelve years later, Erol talks with his grandfather Sal, who suggests that Gabe's disappearance might have been the result of a scientific experiment involving time travel.

As he works with Sal on this machine and the math and physics of it, Erol's girlfriend, Grace, becomes pregnant and makes him doubt the necessity of this endeavor.

However, when Grace has a miscarriage and Marika commits suicide (as a result of her grief and confusion over her husband's unexplained failure to return), Erol realizes that the current timeline is the direct result of his father having left: none of this would have happened if Gabe had come home, so this timeline is a dead-end, and has to be corrected.

He tells Gabe to go back home and give his family the life they deserve, and to remember that he, Erol, is what he is because of his father's mistake.