Author's Note: Thanks for all the support. I do wish to say this will not be a long story, though I am thinking of writing a flash-sideways to go along with this.
Michael's ghost flew across the island to the bamboo forest near the original crash site. Jack's body was lying there alone. Michael shook his head at the thought that it would be some time before the body could be taken care of properly. But that was a lower priority than taking care of the living. Michael then drifted rapidly toward Rose and Bernard's home on the far north side, desperately hoping that his last chance was following a similar path.
For once luck was on the side of all concerned. Michael spotted his target, flew to a point ahead, and materialized to the sound of wind and whispers.
Vincent's fur pricked up at the strange sound, and then the sight of a man he hadn't seen in three years, but recognized instantly. Vincent ran toward Michael – and passed through the ghostly image. Alarmed and confused, Vincent ducked behind a tree, and peered out at the apparition. The Labrador sniffed the air, and found that the newcomer did not have a scent. The dog growled.
"Vincent, can you understand me?" asked Michael.
Vincent barked.
"Vincent, people need your help. It's this way."
Michael pointed to the west.
After Vincent detected that Jack had passed on, he trotted back toward the Nadler's home. It was a long way away, most of the length of the island. Fortunately, the ferry near where Cindy, Zach, and Emma lay dying was close to Vincent's route. While not on a direct line, the battle site was as close as could be hoped for to the point where Michael caught up with Vincent.
Vincent remained puzzled for several seconds, and then concluded Michael was not a threatening figure. There must be a very important reason for Michael showing up at that point. Vincent came up with a reason: Michael could be indicating that Walt had returned and was showing Vincent the way to his old master. The thought launched Vincent into a run in the correct direction.
Michael was encouraged that Vincent had obliged. If he had to, Michael would have tried scaring Vincent into the correct direction, but now that would not be necessary.
Vincent followed Michael to the ferry. While disappointed not to find Walt there, Vincent did immediately recognize that the three people he did see were in trouble. His first reaction was to lick Zach's face. The boy responded feebly, and Michael intervened.
"That won't help, Vincent, they need water."
Michael drifted around looking for something of use, while Vincent trotted over to nuzzle Emma's face. The girl shook her head, and with an effort petted Vincent once. There were various supplies scattered about when the group following the creature who had taken Locke's form. In a minute Michael found a canteen. It was empty, but under the circumstances worth more than a pile of gold ingots.
"Vincent, over here!"
Having led him to the wounded victims, Vincent was now fully trusting of Michael and ran to his current location. The Labrador had seen canteens often enough and knew what they were used for. He picked it up and darted to the shore.
"No Vincent, it has to be fresh water."
Michael was suddenly in front of Vincent, and pointing back. It took Vincent several seconds to figure out what he was doing wrong. Then he remembered how the ocean water didn't taste as good as other water that had been supplied. He turned around and looked back at Michael.
An advantage of having been in spirit form over the island for so long is that Michael knew where everything was located. He was able to lead Vincent to the nearest fresh water source, a stream about five minutes away in the direction of the old village. Vincent understood to dunk the canteen in the stream, but water spilled out.
"You have to hold the canteen sideways, so the water won't spill."
Michael demonstrated by holding his sideways, and again Vincent got the idea. After slurping up some water for himself, Vincent again dunked the canteen, and this time tilted his head so the opening was facing up. Regrettably he couldn't twist the cap on, nor could Michael assist in any physical way. Thus Vincent had to retrace his steps in an awkward position, moving more slowly than before. Thanks to his efforts only a little water spilled on the way back.
Vincent went to the youngest first. Zach was now lying still, so Vincent maneuvered the canteen's opening to the boy's mouth. Zach choked at first, and then managed a few swallows. Vincent then brought the canteen over to Emma, with similar results at first. After a few mouthfuls of water, Emma recovered enough to hold the canteen in her hands and drink more normally. She blinked as she realized the nature of her benefactor.
"Nice doggie, where did you come from?"
Vincent barked, and Cindy stirred, her legged still pinned under a tree. Emma couldn't move with her broken leg, so Vincent next carried the canteen to Cindy. Cindy thought she might be dreaming, but was able to grasp the canteen and drink from it after wiping the opening with the back of her hand. She had never seen Vincent, having been abducted by the Others before reaching the fuselage section beach camp. She left some water for the children, and Vincent returned to Zach, who finished it. Vincent then looked to Michael for more instructions.
"That isn't enough, Vincent, we have to do this again."
Michael strode off toward the stream again, and Vincent followed. The procedure was repeated three more times, and on the last trip, Michael scoured the area for solid food within Vincent's reach. Most of the food brought on the last trip that was still present was spoiled, but Michael did find a bunch of six bananas, albeit on the overripe side. He directed Vincent toward it, and the dog brought it back to Cindy, who had the strength to peel them. Zach managed to crawl over to Emma before slumping on the ground next to her. When each had a banana, they felt well enough to speak. As before, Michael was visible to just the children,
"Is this your dog?" asked Zach.
"He was my son's dog."
"Was? You mean your son is … I'm so sorry," Emma responded.
"No, Walt isn't dead. He got off the island, but Vincent didn't make it with us. Did you ever see Walt? About six to nine weeks after the crash?"
"I don't remember a 'Walt.' There could have been someone who was locked away all the time, but we weren't allowed to go near part of the village."
"That's too bad; I bet you would have been friends. But what's important now is that we get you home."
Now Zach had a question. "What happened to you? Why are you here?"
Michael sighed. "I had to come back here because I did some bad things here, and I had to try to help those who were left behind. I was killed in the process, and now I'm here to help you and whoever else needs it."
Zach: "You don't seem like a bad person."
Michael: "Maybe not now, but when my son was kidnapped like you were, I … it's not important now. The important thing is that you get well enough to go home."
The sun was setting, and Emma and Zach were yawning.
"What's going to happen now?" asked Emma.
"Vincent is going to bring help in the form of live people. You're going to have to get some rest now."
"Will you stay here during the night?" Zach looked at Michael.
Michael hadn't planned on doing so, but there wasn't anything more he could do now.
"Sure. I'll make sure nothing happens to you overnight." Michael figured he could scare away some wild animals, but if none had come here the past three days, it wasn't likely some would come now. "That canteen is full now, and if you get hungry you can eat the bananas that are left."
Cindy simply let the children talk with their ghost friend. She couldn't be sure Michael was real, but it was keeping their spirits up, and that was very important now.
Michael had to give Vincent instructions. "Go to Rose and Bernard, and bring them here no matter what. And bring some food with you. Understand?"
Michael pointed north, and Vincent wagged his tail and barked. Vincent ran off, going as far as he could while the fading light permitted. Rose and Bernard wouldn't be able to travel at dark well anyway, and Vincent settled in to sleep a third of the way there.
When dawn broke, Vincent was up and running. In two hours he reached the Nadlers' residence, and barked up a storm.
"Vincent, what's gotten into you?" Rose had never seen Vincent so animated.
Vincent spun around in circles and darted back and forth out the door.
"He isn't going to give us any peace until we see what he wants to show us."
As Rose and Bernard ready to leave, Vincent bolted into the kitchen, looked at the available food, and then reached up by placing his front paws on a wall and snatched a jar of peanut butter in his mouth. He then ran back outside.
"Will we ever get peace here?" quipped Bernard.
"I'm not sure. But it looks like someone may be hurt. Maybe someone else washed ashore. We have to check it out."
Hurley woke as the sun's rays filtered through the canopy of leaves. It took him a minute to remember where he was. When his eyes focused, the image of Michael was in front of him.
"You! What happened? The kids and Cindy …" spluttered Hurley.
"Calm down. They're okay for now. I was able to get them help."
"How? You said Rose and Bernard were too far away."
"They were, and I couldn't communicate with them, but there was somebody else."
"You mean there are more people still alive on this island?"
"No, not more people."
"Then how …" and then Hurley figured it out. "Vincent?"
"That's right. Vincent was on his way from Jack's body to Rose and Bernard's house, and fortunately that path came pretty close to where Cindy, Emma, and Zach are. I was able to coax Vincent into bringing water and bananas to them."
"Ooh, Jack's body. We have to take care of that."
"Yes, but the priority must be the living. They still need your help, and of course Jack would have wanted it that way."
By then Desmond was stirring. "The dog … that I heard barking when I was in the well?"
"Yes, that was Vincent," explained Hurley. "A lot of us felt there was something special about that dog. But how are you feeling?"
Desmond got up and stretched his legs. "Much better. We better get going."
Ben was still lying on the ground. Desmond nudged him. "Wake up, brother."
Ben was groggy. "Desmond … Hugo … what happened?" Ben struggled to his feet with the aid of his walking stick.
"It's all right, Michael managed to get Vincent to bring enough food and water to Cindy and the kids to last another day, but we got to get moving."
"Vincent? … You mean Walt's dog?"
"You know of some other dude named Vincent on this island?"
Ben shook his head. "Sorry Hugo, I'm just waking up. Let's move."
Ben's legs were still a little stiff, but he decided the pain was minor compared to what he had caused, and shook it off. "This way."
The group resumed their hike toward the Pala Ferry. Michael was quiet, figuring it was better not to say things that would have to be repeated for Ben. Now that he wasn't struggling every step like the day before, Desmond did have some questions.
"Can you tell me more about these people we're rescuing?"
In quite a contrast from most of his life, Ben was going to tell the whole truth.
"Emma and Zach are a sister and brother who were among the tail-end survivors Oceanic Flight 815, aged eleven and nine at the time. Since our women could not conceive and give birth on the island, we took all children we could in order to keep our society going. We took Walt for the same reason in part.
The other reason we took all the children was to identify possible future leaders of the island. This came from Jacob, who expressed his desires through Richard. We tested Emma and Zach extensively. While we found that they had some weak abilities, they were not suitable for island leadership. I am not too surprised that they can see Michael's ghost, and they can probably also see other spirits who wish to make themselves visible to them. By contrast, Walt showed exceptionally strong abilities under testing. So strong that it was dangerous to be near him when he was highly agitated. He also showed extreme resistance to mind control, and an unexpectedly high concentration of anger pent up inside him. This made him also unsuitable to be a future leader for the island, and we felt we were better off with him gone."
Hurley interrupted. "These abilities – did that have something to do with the way he beat me in backgammon so often?"
"Possibly. Rolling dice is not as random as people think. If one holds and rolls the dice the same way each time, the same numbers will appear. Of course there is an extremely small margin for error involved, one far too small for most people, even trained magicians, to accomplish. But Walt may have been the one in a billion who could accomplish this much more often than chance would indicate.
Back to Emma and Zach, when we found they were not leadership material we decided to brainwash them into become regular members of our society. A problem arose since they resisted accepting us, so we kidnapped Cindy Chandler, whom we decided was the most controllable person remaining from their original group. Then we were able to brainwash them, and the children accepted Cindy as their caregiver. We set them up in a house, and they lived quietly there for a few months.
When the trouble began with the people from the freighter, I sent them and many other residents to the Temple. They made it, but not everybody did. They lived there for about three years, and I then believe they endured all the time flashes Hugo experienced, but came out of that in the present day still at the Temple. Then the Man in Black, in Locke's form, paid the Temple a visit, and gave them an ultimatum. They had to either follow him, or be killed. Fortunately they chose to go with him, as everyone who stayed behind was indeed killed. More perished on the trek from the jungle, and apparently some more in that uncalled for mortar attack launched by Charles Widmore.
You know the fates of the rest of those who interacted with that being in Locke's form. Sun, Jin, and Sayid perished in the submarine, while Kate, Sawyer, Claire, Miles, and Richard got on that plane piloted by Frank. Before yesterday I thought that was a complete accounting of all the remaining survivors, but now we know Cindy, Emma, and Zach were forgotten."
Desmond was moved by the story. "To have lived through all that, and then … we can't let them die like that. See if we can move a little faster."
Rose and Bernard walked as fast as they could, following an obviously impatient Vincent. When they got close, Vincent ran ahead. He barked when he reached the wounded, dropping the jar of peanut butter from his mouth in the process. He picked it up and brought it over to Zach.
While the injured were waking up, Rose caught sight of them.
"There are people here, and they look hurt. Where could they have come from?" Rose asked.
"I haven't the faintest …" and Bernard's jaw dropped.
"What is it? Do you recognize them?"
"That's … the woman is Cindy, the flight attendant who was with my group. She disappeared while we were hiking to your group. And the children … they've grown some, but they have to be the ones that were taken a few days after the crash!"