Ben sat on the cot in the armory, staring stoically ahead at the empty shelves. His tongue felt out a crack on his lip. There were flashes of pain in his face and ribs and more places than he cared to think about, so he wasn't thinking about them. They were irrelevant, anyway; necessary evils, you might call them.
He was thinking about a sunny afternoon a few months back. He had been bored—he could get bored, halfway into a project and waiting for someone else's results before he could proceed—and he had decided to take a walk around the neighborhood. He swept through the long grass (time to get someone mowing), making a circuit of the bungalows (everything in order, except for that gutter on the western side of Danny and Colleen's roof) and enjoying the fresh air and the fine weather (better get that gutter fixed before it rains again).
He was just heading back to his own bungalow when he heard her door creak open. He turned, a smile on his face, and saw Goodwin. The other man was saying something to the person—the woman—behind the door, something that seemed to be a half-hearted attempt at a farewell, and then strong feminine hands reached out and pulled him back inside. Ben heard her laughing.
He had prided himself on being surprised by nothing, but somehow that had taken him by surprise. He hurried home, fine weather and lawn maintenance forgotten, and Danny and Colleen never did end up getting their gutter fixed.
Ben could see that moment clearly still, every detail, down to every blade of grass, and he knew that Sayid was right.
If he had buried the woman he loved, he would have remembered.