Benjamin Linus heard a great roar, as from a jet and looked up to see one flying overhead. Lifting his hand above his eyes near his forehead he shielded them from the glare of the sun from the wingscatching the light. In the next second there was a loud cracking as the passenger airliner broke apart in the middle and the metal casing began to fall from the sky. Hearing the commotion the others ran up to him and Benjamin turned to the man beside him.

"There may actually be survivors from this..." Benjamin told him, to go to the beach and scout out the survivors wherever that tail of the airplane would land, and get him a list in three days. "Go!" Goodwin, a handsome, tanned man, went.

Sometime later into the hot night Benjamin still hadn't slept. Something was preying on his mind, a feeling he had gotten when he watched the airliner break apart. Not a fear, more a discomfort, a kind of uneasiness, as if he didn't know what would happen next, but he should. The humidity weighed on him heavier this night than most and he figured that was why he couldn't sleep…that and…the face. He kept seeing the same face. Every time he closed his eyes it was there. A fair face, one that he would call attractive, with red hair surrounding it. The was what he remembered most, like he could describe each strand, gold in some, glinting in the light, glowing fire and gold in silhouette. It was his mind kept chasing over and over and never grasping. It kept teasing him, looking away, or falling deep in shadows.

Droplets of sweat hit his pillow…

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Hours before Ben's head hit the pillow that night Dr. Darcy Cummings was settling into her airplane seat back in Coach, as she felt it the most economical to fly. It wasn't that she was particularly frugal to choose to be flying, but that necessity predicated it. On an Anthropoligist's salary, flying around the world wasn't really considered a needed part of the University job, so flying around the world for the job was something she did more on her own. She was lucky though, she had been smart from the time she was a little kid, taking her earnings from her world class cellist days (which seemed downright luxurious compared to now), and saving them in a Trust, then taking out money as it was needed.

But any worries melted out of her mind as she slipped on her earphones over her tawny hair and listened to HOKU's "Perfect Day" song. About midway through, the song skipped around as the plane bumped, jumped, rattled, and then when it got to the phrase "It's the perfect day…Nothing's going to bring me down…" The Ipod stopped completely as the plane launched all the people without their seatbelts on to the roof, and broke apart, the cracking noise slightly louder than the racing engines.

Darcy knew from Frequent Flying that the best thing to do was to keep buckled into your seat, and this was the perfect time for it, as she closed her eyes now, knowing she was going to die. Amidst the screams of the other passengers, she felt the rush of wind against her face, her cheeks, legs, tearing through her hair. She kept her eyes closed hoping that she wouldn't feel the final crash, or feel anything. Just keep your eyes closed and everything will be all-right. The mantra she chanted in her mind over and over again as she tried to resist the fear leaping from her stomach into the stratosphere from the sensation of falling.

Darcy was remembering her one flight thirty years ago that sent her towards Destiny. Opening her eyes again she sat back in her airline seat, more spacious than coach now, and stretched out her legs and sighed. She turned her head towards the man sitting in the seat beside her and he smiled a curious smile at her. She had always wondered what his wry smile meant, and here and now she thought she knew. Pride maybe? Simple curiousity? Or a depth of hidden knowledge never to reveal completely, to anybody.

She knew the man in the next seat well, his features she could almost have memorized, but she didn't like him. She never had liked him. He had gotten older now, grey hair in wisps around his head, his skin lined with a greater age on his careworn face. But now, as before his most startling feature was the eyes that were shining out from the crinkles in his face, still looking so wide and innocent as they did when she first saw them long ago. His eyes, were always devious in their trickery, yet always convincing. It wasn't his eyes, or deviousness that had convinced her to come with him. It was pure plain simple facts. Facts that she couldn't escape from, no matter how she tried. Facts that sucked her in a whirlpool of lies, deceptions, and finally Truth.

That she had to be here, on this flight, with him, returning home. It had taken a long time to get here, and now, coming upon 70 she wished she was back, not heading towards the Island, but back at her home, on the mainland. Her small house on the outskirts of Sydney, by the beach. That was home. Now she was taking her second trip out of Sydney, into a place she didn't know where.