"We have to go back."

Their mother sits on the edge of one bed in the hotel room they found for the night in a less ocean-side part of Astoria. She stands up again and paces toward the bathroom, not looking at Harold.

"We have to go back!" Harold repeats.

She sighs and shakes her head. "It wasn't supposed to happen like this."

"Mom, we can't leave him!"

Their mother paces toward the beds then back toward the bathroom again, sliding the palm of one hand over her knuckles. "It's not as simple as all that, Harold. This wasn't how it was supposed to be."

"But we just left him," Harold gasps. "We left him!"

"I know that, Harold!" She snaps. She plants her feet and puts her hands on her hips. She breathes in through her nose then finally makes eye contact with Harold. "But we can't just go back."

"Why?" Harold says, his voice pitching up an octave in pain.

"It's…" Their mother rubs a hand over her forehead. "It was hard enough for us to leave and we can't just sail back there."

"Yes, we can! We have to! We…" Harold breathes hard, tries to slow himself down. "We went there on the sub and we left on it and we can go back on it now!"

"The submarine isn't a free ride, Harold. It's for Dharma use only."

"But we are Dharma!"

Their mother sighs quietly. "Not exactly, honey."

"But… but… we were just there; they'd have to let us back. And we can get Ben and we can leave again and…"

"Harold." Their mother walks closer and kneels down in front of Harold. "I'm sorry, we can't."

"New people come to the island all the time!" Harold shouts and their mother draws back slightly. "Why can't we just get on the submarine and get my brother?!"

"We can't, Harold."

"Why?"

Their mother rubs her hands down Harold's arms in a soothing gesture. "Harold…"

Harold huffs loudly and pulls out of her arms. "If we can't go back then call them!"

"What?"

Harold marches around one bed and picks up the phone receiver from its cradle on the bedside table. "Call the island!" Harold holds out the receiver. "The Flame has communications, Ben and I saw them. You can call them and they can send Ben to us."

Their mother stands up again. "Your father might have something to say about that."

"But you can tell them!" Harold shouts. "You can tell them to send him!"

"Harold… I…" She swallows once, looks away and her voice becomes very quiet. "Don't you know your father is the one they will listen to?"

The phone receiver drops out of Harold's hand as he starts to shake. "But… we have to… he… we can't leave him."

Their mother turns her head back and walks over to Harold. She sits on the bed closer to Harold and pulls one of his hands into hers. "It is going to be all right. You will be with me and Ben will be with your father."

Harold shakes his head. "No."

"Things will be different now but…"

Harold tires to pull his hand away but she holds fast. "No."

"But you are both going to be fine."

"No!"

"Harold, listen to me. I know it will be hard."

"Hard?" Harold finally yanks his hand free and stumbles back a step. "We left Ben behind with him!"

Their mother's face steels over – a grim mask Harold thinks he has never seen before on her face. "If we go back, Harold, your father will not let us leave again."

"He has to!"

Their mother shakes her head. "We can't go back, Harold."

"But Ben…"

"Your father will take care of him. Ben isn't alone."

"But…" Harold's voice turns to a whisper. "Dad will hurt him."

Their mother shakes her head. "No, Harold, he won't."

Harold feels like he cannot breathe. "He already has."

She looks away for a second then meets Harold's eyes again, her expression steady and calm. "This is a wakeup call, Harold; something adults need sometimes. Your father will be better now."

"How do you know?"

"Because he has to." She smiles. "I know the man I married."

They stand still in silence for a moment. Then she wipes a hand across Harold's cheeks over tears Harold did not realize were falling. He keeps staring at her – her smile, her confidence, how can she be so calm – but he cannot speak any longer, all that is going through his head is how very wrong he knows she is.

The next morning Harold hears their mother on the phone when she thinks he is still asleep, asking over and over to talk to Dharma or Dr. Chang, "it's important," until she hangs up the phone with a sigh.

––––––––––––––––

"Where?" Their father shakes Ben by his shoulders in their living room. "Tell me!"

"Stop! I don't know!" Ben gasps.

"Where are they going?"

"I don't know!" Ben says insistently and tries to pull out of their father's grasp. "Please!"

"You have to know!" He insists right back and shoves Ben out of his hands. "Where was she going to take you?"

Ben breathes hard and shakes his head. "She didn't tell us."

"Where were you going?! Where!" He shouts right in Ben's face.

"I don't know!" Ben shouts back, his voice cracking, afraid to move. "I swear, I don't know!"

"Did she think you three could just leave?" Their father huffs in a harsh way, pulling back and pacing two steps back and forth. "You all need me! I'm the one that works around here and she just leaves! She thinks she could take you two away from me?" He huffs again and kicks the couch beside him making Ben jump. "You can't just leave!"

"I didn't…" Ben says quietly, sniffs, tears down his face. "I didn't get to…"

Their father turns sharply back to Ben and slaps him across the face. Ben stumbles and cries half in pain and half in surprise. "'You didn't get to?' None of you should have even tried! Why would you? We're a family!"

"Because… because you…"

Their father slaps Ben again and this time he falls down onto his knees, hand against the burning side of his face.

"I don't want to hear it!" Their father leans over Ben for a moment. "You should be happy, happy with what we have here. Your father has a good job, you're getting schooling and the three of you think you should just run away?" He makes a scoffing noise and stands up straight again. "Run away and leave me?"

Ben stares at the floor – thinks about how their father has always said he hates his job and why do grownups have to lie – and breathes in and out, saying nothing, staying still. Their father paces some more and Ben glances up cautiously in the silence.

"Should be happy," their father mutters. "What does she know? And why…" He huffs and suddenly looks down at Ben again. "Why would she leave, huh? Why?"

Ben knows the reason and he thinks their father must know too but Ben is a quick learner and knows that often grownups ask questions without needing or wanting an answer.

"She just…" He huffs then kicks the coffee table, whirls around and pulls Ben up to standing by the collar of his shirt. "Where did she go, Ben? Tell me, where!"

"Please…"

"Where! Portland? San Francisco? Where? Seattle? What was her plan?"

Ben shakes his head. "I don't know."

Their father throws Ben back down on the ground and growls in a frustrated way. He turns away from Ben and runs his hands through his hair. They he turns back and snaps, "Go to your room!"

Ben jumps up and runs back to their room. For a half a second he expects to see Harold sitting on one of their beds waiting for him. Instead he sees Eight, sniffing at the air and nestled up against Ben's pillow. Ben closes the door behind him and sits down on his bed, feet just touching the floor. He rubs a hand over his cheek and tastes copper in his mouth. He must have bit the inside of his cheek when their father hit him.

Ben lies back on his bed – Eight scooted to the side – and stares up at the dark ceiling. He does not look at the empty bed on the other side of the room or Harold's backpack retrieved from the water at the dock. He just keeps staring up into the darkness as tears slip slowly down from his eyes into his hair.

"Please, come back," he whispers.

––––––––––––––––

Harold and their mother move to Lassiter, Iowa.

"I've bought us a farm, Harold," their mother says. "It used to belong to a cousin of mine."

"A farm?"

"I grew up on a farm, didn't you know that?" Harold shakes his head and she smiles at him. "Your mother comes from a big farmer family."

They get the furniture and mementoes the family had put into storage before first going to the island and load it all onto a truck. They have all the 'things' they need, two beds, a couch, tables, chairs, even some lamps and plates for the kitchen. Harold forgot how many boxes of books and old pictures they'd left behind when the moved.

"We have about two hundred acres," their mother says. "We can grow corn and you can help me, Harold."

"Corn?"

She nods. "My family grew wheat and we also had some cows. I was good with the animals." She frowns for a moment and looks away. "Or was it pigs?"

They buy things on credit to fill the gaps – clothing, shoes, a truck, farm equipment. Their mother takes up a second job along with running the farm as an assistant on the weekends at a veterinarian's in town.

"It does not take long to learn and I will need your help a lot," their mother says as she inventories what farming supplies they have in the barn from the initial purchase, checking items off on a piece of paper.

Harold frowns. "What will I do?"

"Well, you can help me with the truck for one." She smiles. "We know how you can take them apart. Good thing I've got you."

"Better than if you'd gotten away with Ben instead, you mean?"

Her face falls. "I was trying to protect you, Harold."

"Both of us?"

"Yes."

Harold looks away. "You didn't."

She is silent for a long moment until she steps up beside Harold in the barn doorway. "It's not easy, Harold. Life is never easy and we all make choices." She puts her hand on his shoulder as they look out at the trees at the edge of the property. "Adults have to live with the consequences of their choices."

"You mean leaving Ben behind?"

He hears his mother breathe deeply beside him and her hand clenches around his shoulder. "This isn't forever, Harold." Harold looks up at her and she looks down at him. "You will see Ben again."

"He should be with us now, mom."

"I'm sorry, Harold. But this is just how it is."

They look at the trees, a bird flying by to land on one branch.

"Do you know what that one is?" Their mother asks pointing at the bird.

"A robin?"

"No."

"A finch?"

"Maybe."

"Mom…"

She looks down at him. "Harold?"

"It hasn't been that long since we left the island." She sighs and looks away from him again. He touches her waist, tries to get her to look at him. "We could still go back. We could still get Ben!"

She turns and walks away from Harold back into the barn. She stops in front of the work bench, putting down the paper and leaning her hands on it. "I've tried, Harold," she says softly. "But this is where we are now." She turns and looks back at him. "This is our life."

"I don't want a life without Ben."

Their mother's jaw clenches then she picks up her check list again. "Go inside, Harold. You start school tomorrow. Check and make sure you have all you need."

"Mom…"

"Go."

In the evening Harold goes outside alone. He lies down in a small patch of grass and stares up at the stars. He finds constellations he knows, follows the tail of the big dipper. He does not need a book to know that each one shines up in the sky in its proper place. The stars still feel wrong.

––––––––––––––––

Ben sits on the porch outside of his house. He should be walking to the school house right now. Lessons are going to begin in about ten minutes. He does not stand up from the chair however. He keeps listening to their father talking to Mr. Goodspeed inside.

"So, just Ben and I now."

"I'm glad to hear about the opportunity for Harold though," Mr. Goodspeed says. "He always seemed like a bright kid."

"Definitely, and his mother is with him, so…"

"Sorry about that, man."

"No, no," their father covers up quickly. "She wanted to go. Had to have one of us to keep an eye on Harold with this special school, make sure he keeps up all the work he'll have to do."

"Right."

"It's just… well, Ben is…" Their father makes a casual scoffing noise that sounds very fake to Ben's ears. "He's just a bit jealous Harold got to go and he didn't."

Mr. Goodspeed makes a noise like comprehension and says, "Ah," the way so many adults do when they know they are supposed to be interested and understanding.

"Worried he might try to run away. So if you could just keep an eye out?"

"Of course," Mr. Goodspeed says. "No one can take the sub without authorization anyway and there isn't another way off the island so I don't think you'll have to worry. Doubt anyone would let the boy just jump on it alone anyway, man."

"Ben?" Ben looks up at the sound of Annie's voice. She smiles at him then waves for him to come with her. "Come on, we have class."

Ben looks down at his feet, kicking them slightly and clutches his bag against his chest. "I know."

"You have to come."

He looks up at her. "Why?"

She frowns. "It's school, Ben."

Ben stands up, puts his backpack over his shoulders then walks down the two steps to Annie. She smiles and suddenly squeezes his hand. "It's going to be okay."

Ben shakes his head. "It's not."

"You still have school to go to, you still have me."

He nods as he watches his feet. "Thank you."

"Of course, I'm your friend. Friends help each other and even though Harold is gone, I'm still here."

"It's just…" Ben looks up as they walk, the school house coming into view. He glances at Annie then back toward the school house. "We've always been together."

"Maybe they will come back." Ben looks at her again. "I mean, can you and Harold really be apart?"

Ben cannot form a reply as they walk up the steps and into the school house. They take their usual seats, Ben in front of Annie and one empty seat beside them. The other students chatter and shift around, one boy trying to make a paper airplane before Olivia arrives. Ben keeps looking at the empty desk next to him.

"All right class!" Everyone quiets down and turns to the front as Olivia walks in with what looks like boxes of rocks in her arms. "I hope you are all ready for some Geology today."

"Yes!" One girl with red hair near the front says while the rest of the class looks half skeptical and half interested.

Olivia chuckles as she puts down the boxes. "Thank you, Tina." She pats her hand on the box and picks up the class roster. "Now, is everyone here…" She looks up, eyes coasting over them then pulling a post it note off her roster. "Right." She puts down the clip board and puts her hands on her hips. "Just to make everyone aware we are going to be one less now in class."

"Less what?" Jared says near the window.

"Was there a hostile…" someone whispers.

Ben's jaw clenches and he looks down at his hands.

"Settle!" Olivia says before anyone can speculate more. "Harold and his mother have gone back to the mainland so Harold can attend a new school."

Half the class turns and looks at Harold's seat as Olivia speaks, only a few even noticing that Ben is still there. Annie pats Ben's arm quickly from behind him.

"However, we still have Ben with us."

At that everyone in front of Ben turns to look back at him, most with confused expressions.

"Glad to still have you with us, Ben," Olivia says looking directly to him.

Ben's not exactly sure how he knows but from her tone, and the way she looks at him like she was just talking about the weather, Ben knows that Olivia must not have any brothers or sisters.

"I'm glad you're still here too," Annie whispers behind Ben and for the first time in days Ben smiles a little.

After school is over, after Ben rushes through dinner, avoids their father, he lies on his back outside in the back yard. He stares up the sky, tries to figure out if it has changed or not. He knows the stars are wrong, are moving with this island or with the sky or whatever it is that makes them change. This time, however, as Ben looks up at them, they feel wrong because of something else completely.

––––––––––––––––

"Good morning, Harold." Harold opens his eyes to see their mother leaning down over him. "Do you remember what today is?"

"What?"

She grins. "Happy birthday." She pats the sheets then stands up. "Get up; I've made you a special breakfast."

As she exits the room, Harold sits up and picks up his glasses off his bedside table. He looks across the room at the wall where a bookshelf stands instead of another bed. He stares for a moment, reads the titles then slides himself out of bed to get dressed.

In the kitchen, their mother puts a bottle of syrup down beside a stack of pancakes on a plate. Next to the pancakes is another plate with bacon on it and a small bowl of fruit.

Their mother smiles and holds out her hands. "Come on, birthday breakfast." Her eyes shift past Harold and she frowns. "Where is your brother?"

"Ben is here?" Harold says in surprise. He turns around, looks behind him, looks into the living room. "Where?"

"He's…" She stops with her mouth half open then shakes her head. "No, of course not, Ben…" She clears her throat. "I'm sorry, Ben isn't here."

"Then why did you…"

"I'm sorry dear, must have been force of habit." She gives him a thin lipped smile then holds out her hand to the seat at the kitchen table again. "Sit, eat, you still have to go to school."

Harold feels deflated but he also knows his mother got up even earlier than farm life requires to make this for him. He sits down and picks up his fork. "Thank you, mom."

She smiles. "Happy ninth birthday, Harold." She picks up her coffee and takes a sip. "One more thing."

"I have enough food," Harold says as he cuts into the pancakes with his fork.

Their mother laughs as she walks back into the kitchen from the living room. "No, Harold, I got a present for you."

She puts down the ribbon wrapped box

And Ben takes it.

Ben smiles at Annie on the swing beside him and pulls the ribbon off the box. He pushes past the tissue paper and pulls out two carved wooden dolls. He glances at Annie in question.

"It's you and me." She smiles. "That way we'll always be together." She pushes her swing just a bit back and forth. "And so you don't feel so alone without Harold."

Ben holds them up and turns then from side to side. Then he puts them back down into the box and looks at Annie again. "Thank you."

She grins. "You like them?"

"Yes."

"I made them myself, didn't take as long as you'd think."

Ben laughs once. "They're great."

Annie picks up the box from Ben's lap then puts it down to the side. She pulls back then lets herself swing forward. She pumps with her legs and grins at Ben. "Come on."

Ben smiles back and starts to swing with her.

"Happy birthday!" Annie says as they swing higher and higher together.

That night their father drinks through an entire six pack of beer as Ben does his homework and cleans up the kitchen. He looks at Ben when he is half through his last beer, practically passed out already on the couch. "It's your birthday."

Ben nods.

He huffs. "I forgot." He takes another drink and frowns as he stares at Ben "Hard to be happy about it though, isn't it, when your mother abandoned us?"

Their father does not mention Harold.

Lying in bed that night Ben says, "happy birthday, Harold to the air," while Harold lies in his bed an ocean and miles of land away saying, "happy birthday, Ben," to the darkness.

––––––––––––––––

Harold sits at the living room table, books and note paper strewn all over it along with the telephone.

Sixteen phone numbers on his list are already crossed out – four connected to Horace Goodspeed, two former addresses and two work numbers but no forwarding numbers left; five numbers from their father's old address book which luckily was in one of the storage boxes but all proved to be of no help; two numbers which looked like they might be Dharma contacts in Portland but were disconnected; three numbers for the Oregon port authority, one number for the coast guard and one number for the Navy, all of which did not much like speaking with 'a child.'

Harold runs a hand through his hair and frowns. He pulls the Oregon phone book in the middle of the table toward him with an aggravated huff. "Fine, fine."

Harold flips back to the yellow pages and then on until he finds the letter 'D.' He scans the page for any company name which bears a resemblance to the word 'Dharma.' He finds an entry which reads Dharma Indian. Harold frowns but pulls the phone toward him regardless. He dials the numbers on the phone and waits through two rings.

"Thank you for calling Dharma Indian, our hours are seven to eight, Monday through Friday."

Harold hangs up the phone and makes a big X over the entry in the phone book with his pen. He slides his finger over the page, up and down, turns the page again and again. Harold slams the book shut then stands up and walks to the other end of the table where one of their moving boxes sits. He puts his hand in, pushes up stacks of papers, a folder labeled 'taxes.' He found their father's address book in this box, there might be something else.

"Come on." Harold flips up more folders without labels. "Please… there has to be…"

Then he sees it; the Dharma logo peeking out from under a red folder. Harold shoves the papers and folders to one side of the box with little concern for their wellbeing. The logo is on what appears to be a small informational brochure. Harold snatches it out of the box, nearly knocking the box off the table, and opens it. The three pages include information about research opportunities, the founders Gerald and Karen DeGroot, some photos of smiling people and he recognizes Dr. Chang. On the back, at the very bottom of the page, is a phone number. Harold gasps and nearly drops the brochure in his excitement. Harold runs around the table, grabs the phone and dials the number with shaking hands.

The line connects and Harold has to control himself to just say, "Hello," and not scream it.

"Thank you for contacting the Department of Heuristics And Research on Material Applications initiative, also known as the Dharma initiative."

Harold frowns because he never realized Dharma was an acronym.

"Our recruitment office has filled our required allotment of recruits at the present time. Please check back at a later date for future enlistment programs. You may also send a resume for future consideration to our Ann Arbor headquarters. We appreciate your interest and hope to work with you to change the world. Namaste."

The phone is silent for a moment then a dial tone starts. Harold puts the phone back in the cradle and bites the edge of his lip.

"Harold?" Their mother calls from outside.

Harold starts in surprise, looks down at the mess on the table then starts to pull it all together in a pile. "Yeah, mom?"

"I need your help."

Harold frowns, stacks the phone book on top of his list of failed numbers and the address book. "With what?" He puts the Dharma brochure into his pants pocket.

"We need to fix the tractor; looks like its leaking."

Harold frowns, tosses his stack into the box of tax folders and assorted papers then puts the top on. He picks up the box, stows it in an unobtrusive corner then heads toward the side door. "Coming!"

Later that evening Harold notices the box has moved and he hears his mother on the phone in the kitchen, her voice soft but insistent. "What do you mean I have to be affiliated with… No, I'm not looking for employ… Please, that number was disconnected, I've already called it. No, I just need to contact the isla– no, no don't transfer me, please… shit…"

––––––––––––––––

Ben and Annie sit together in a back corner of the rec center. There is a chess set in between them, two pawns taken by Ben and Annie's knight in the center but in reality they are not actually playing.

"The submarine is the only way people leave."

Ben nods. "There has to be a schedule somewhere."

"Probably at the orientation building." Annie fiddles with one of the pawns. "But that's locked."

"If they keep a schedule there can't be just one." Ben moves his rook in a legal move and takes out one of Annie's pawns. "Or we could break in to the orientation building."

Annie giggles. "Like we were spies."

Ben clenches his jaw. "It's not a game, Annie."

She frowns. "I know. I just… even if we got the schedule, how would you get on the submarine?"

"I could sneak on."

"How?"

"I…" Ben frowns. "There has to be a way. My mom and Harold got on it."

Annie purses her lips. "You said there was a woman helping them. Maybe she could help you?"

"Yes!" Ben says with a grin that fades just as quickly.

"What?"

Ben twists his fingertips around the arm of his glasses. "I don't know who it was or if she's even come back."

Annie picks up the two captured pawns and taps them together. "Maybe she'll try and find you? She would have seen that you didn't make it."

"We can check the manifest."

"What?"

Ben stands up from the small table and takes the pawns out of her hands. "If all the trips the submarine makes have a list of who comes and goes then she would be on the list from that night!"

"Shh!" Annie hisses and points toward two Dharma researchers playing ping pong closer to the door.

"We should go now," Ben whispers.

"It's light out!"

"So?"

"Don't people do crimes at night?"

Ben frowns. "It's not a crime. I'm not going to steal it. I only need to look at it." He takes her hand and pulls her to standing. "And it might be open now since its day."

"But are we allowed to –"

"Please, Annie."

She screws up her lips in indecision then her expression morphs into a smile. She nods and skips ahead of Ben, pulling him along toward the door. They walk quickly but don't run toward the orientation building. There hasn't been a new batch of recruits since Ben first came to the island so the building has little activity around it. However, a side door is open and they can see as they peer through a window that two people are inside. Ben recognizes Phyllis who usually works at the motor pool and Debra who is with medical.

"Not for three weeks and why is aspirin not a priority?"

"Relax Debra, it's not like everyone doesn't have their own bottle in their house."

"Exactly," Debra drops the clipboard she was carrying onto an empty table. "They steal them from medical and then I am left with a deficit."

Ben sees Phyllis rolls her eyes. "Sure, Debra."

"God, you are no help! Are you at least going to help with this?" Debra puts a box on the table. "There are five more in the back closet. We need to have the shots ready for when we get another batch of recruits."

"I thought Goodspeed said we were putting a freeze on…"

"What?"

"Yeah, we have maxed out the –"

"No, stop, come with me. I told him I needed another doctor in case we…" Ben cannot hear the rest of what they say as they exit the building through an opposite door.

Ben and Annie look at each other and nod. They glance behind them, hunch down then scurry around the side of the building and through the open door. Once inside they stay low so they will not be seen through the windows from afar.

"Where would they be?" Annie asks, half to Ben and half to herself.

Ben looks around the room – three tables, television on the wall, cabinets, shelves, door to another room. Ben walks across the room stooped over until he reaches the back door and he stands up straight again. He walks into the back room where there is a desk and several filing cabinets.

"In here," Ben finally answers Annie as she comes up next to him.

Annie walks over to one filing cabinet and opens a drawer at random. Ben lets his eyes run over everything until the word 'travel' pops out at him. He focuses and walks over to the drawer with 'Travel forms and documents' on the label.

Annie makes an 'ooo' noise and peers into the drawer as Ben opens it. "Maybe they have it by date in here? Or is there a section that says submarine?"

"Or both," Ben says as he pushes back folders to expose the divider that says 'Submarine.'

The section is organized into folders by year. Ben opens the 1973 folder and pages through the forms and documents. Then he finds a form with a familiar date.

"Here," Ben says and pulls it out.

He reads down the page, something about 'planned departure' and 'supplies.' One the lower half of the page is a section titled: passengers and crew. There are six names on the list, four crew and two passengers each labeled with a job or purpose. There is only one female name on the list, one of the passengers, Amanda Patterson.

"Did you find her?" Annie asks.

Ben nods but can say nothing. His fingers squeeze tightly around the edges of the paper as he reads the 'purpose' subheading next to Amanda's name: "Research period ended. No return trip."

––––––––––––––––

Harold sits at a table in the library. He has a tourist's guide to Ann Arbor by his right hand, a stack of science periodicals by his left hand and a map of the Pacific Ocean directly in front of him. Harold had not really expected to find anything in the tourism guide so that was no big surprise as a bust. The science periodicals were something of a shot in the dark as well because Harold does not have a specific journal he knows to check nor an adequate time frame to work with. He can certainly check from the past year but how far back should he go? The brochure he found did not have a founding date for Dharma.

"What is even the focus?" Harold asks to the air as he closes the tenth science journal he found.

He just needs an address. If he can find out where the Dharma headquarters is in Ann Arbor then he can get there – a bus, a train, make their mother drive him – and talk to someone. If he can just explain that he needs his brother, needs him back.

"Just an address," Harold mutters and flips through yet another science journal with a cover story about pandas. He slams it closed – as much as one can slam a magazine. "Isn't Dharma published anywhere?"

Then again, with the strangeness of the island, for all Harold knows their research was secret. It certainly seems that way with all the trouble Harold is having.

The map is an even crazier choice. The island exists; Harold lived on it. So it should stand to reason that the island would be on a map, right?

"But where?" Harold says as he drags his finger over the expanse of the Pacific Ocean on the map.

They were given sedatives for the trip to and from the island. Thus, Harold does not know how long the trip takes. It could have been thirty minutes or six hours. He assumes the island must be in the Pacific Ocean, any other ocean would be much too far for the trip to make any sense starting in Oregon. (At least Harold hopes).

"Unless it's too small," Harold says out loud.

Someone across the aisle from him hisses 'shh.' Harold shoots them an apologetic look then looks back at the map in front of him. He sees the Hawaiian Islands, Indonesia, and The Philippines. The island they lived on was special, different somehow and not part of any existing country as far as Harold knows. Harold folds the map in half and puts his hands over his eyes. He knows – he doesn't need to check the map or the computer encyclopedia system or another book – he knows the island he needs to find is not on any map.

"Then how did Dharma find it." Harold drops his hands and pulls the brochure out of his pocket. "How did you find it?"

Harold stands up, stuffing the brochure back into his pocket and walks over to the card catalog again. He did not bother to check 'Dharma' under subjects the first few times he has been to the library but it certainly cannot hurt to look now. He flips through the D's all the way to the end just in case something is out of alphabetical order but nothing applies. The closest he sees is a book about religion in India.

"No," Harold slams the drawer of the card catalog shut.

"Son!" Harold turns at the librarian's voice a few feet behind him. He looks at her with wide eyes and she frowns. "I won't give you another warning."

Harold nods. "Sorry."

He walks back to his table and stares at the stack of magazines, the half folded map beside it and books that lead to nowhere. Harold feels tears threatening in his eyes and all he keeps thinking in a loop is, 'I wish Ben was here.'

When Harold comes home his mother is washing dirt from the fields off her hands in the kitchen sink. She tilts her head at him with a smile. "Where were you so late?"

"The library."

She frowns but in a questioning way. "Why were you at the library?"

Harold stares at her for a beat then looks away. "Studying for school."

"Ah." She nods and turns off the water in the sink. "That's great. Now, help me with making dinner, would you?"

As he lies in bed that night, Harold stares at the ceiling and wonders at his growing capacity to lie.

He holds the Dharma brochure above his head, flips it open and closed again, turns it to the back then back to the front. He has the evidence in his hand, he had his very feet on the ground of the island, how can he really find nothing to get back to his brother?

––––––––––––––––

Ben waits outside of the Motor Pool. One of the blue vans is being loaded with items to be taken to the submarine scheduled to leave today. Ben licks his lips, looks behind him then turns back to watch the van. There will not be much to load onto the van as the submarine does more of bringing supplies to the island than from.

"Isn't there another box?" A man with caramel skin and hair as long as their mother's asks.

"Earl already loaded the last one," a woman's voice replies from beyond Ben's sight. "You can head down."

"Thanks!" The man replies as he closes the back of the van.

He walks back into the motor pool with his checklist. Ben looks left, looks right and takes his opening. He runs toward the van – holding onto the straps of his backpack – grabs the handle on the back door, swings it open just enough then jumps inside and closes it behind him. He waits for three beats not breathing to see if he hears any commotion, any sign he was seen. There is nothing. Ben breathes out again. He looks behind him at the boxes and squeezes his way between two of them so he hides behind them up against the back seat of the van. He looks under the seat, finds one of the tarps he knows are in most of the vans and pulls it over himself.

A minute later Ben feels the van shift and hears one of the doors open. "Be back in fifteen or so… yeah… I'll tell him, yeah." Then the person speaking gets into the car and Ben hears the door close.

The engine turns on and a few seconds later the car begins to move. Ben breathes in quietly and fists his hands tightly. After a short drive the van stops and the engine turns off again. Ben holds his breath and crosses his fingers. He hears the front car door open and close. Then a second later the back door of the van opens. Ben hears one of the boxes in front of him slide forward and out of the van. Ben waits a few seconds, listens for voices but only hears them far away. Ben peeks out from under the tarp – no one. Ben slides out from under the tarp quickly, jumps out of the van then turns around again to face the van. He picks up a small box then walks down toward the dock.

As he approaches the dock, a man with big curly hair – Ben thinks his name is Elmo or Elmer – looks up at him and frowns. "Hi, kid, what have you –"

"My dad asked me to help, Roger, he's a workman?" Ben says quickly.

"Oh." Elmo or Elmer looks down at his clip board then looks at the label on top of Ben's box. "Right, got it." He makes a check mark on the piece of paper. "Just take it on into the sub. Charles inside will know where it goes."

Ben flashes his best smile. "Okay."

Ben breathes in slowly as he walks out onto the dock – for a moment he feels the weight of their father pinning him to the dock again, sees Harold screaming over their mother's shoulder with his hand stretched out – Ben blinks and keeps walking toward the submarine.

"Hey there, Ben."

Ben stops short at Mr. Goodspeed standing directly in front of him.

He smiles wide and puts his hands on his hips. "What have you got there, man?"

"I… It's…" Ben clears his throat. "I was helping with…. With supplies for…" Ben motions with the box toward the submarine.

Mr. Goodspeed glances half way over his shoulder at the submarine and nods. "Right." He looks back at Ben. "That's good but don't you have school to get to?"

"Um… I… I guess?"

Mr. Goodspeed smiles again and calls over his shoulder. "Hey Baxter? Could you help with this?"

A moment later a man runs up beside Mr. Goodspeed, looks at Ben then takes the box out of Ben's hands. "Sure." Then he turns away again back toward the submarine.

Mr. Goodspeed holds out his hands then claps them once. "All taken care of! Now I think you'd better head to school. Olivia is going to wonder where you are, right?"

Ben clenches his jaw. "Right."

"Great."

Ben turns, fists his hands tightly around the straps of his backpack, and walks back down the dock and toward the road back to the compound. Mr. Goodspeed is still watching him when he looks back.

Ben does not go to school. When Annie sees him later, asks him what happened, he cannot answer her.

"You skipped school today?" Their father says as soon as Ben comes through the door of the house. Ben opens his mouth to retort but their father's fingers clench around the beer can in his hand and Ben closes his mouth again without saying anything. Their father frowns and waves the hand holding the beer. "Well?"

"I did."

"Why?"

"I didn't feel well."

Their father makes a face. "Didn't feel well?"

"I went to medical and I'm fine."

Their father huffs and takes another drink of his beer. "Go to school tomorrow."

Ben nods and walks through the living room and back to his bedroom without another word.

As he lies in bed that night, Ben stares at the ceiling and wonders at his growing capacity to lie. He watches the shadows change on the ceiling, tears threatening his eyes at his aborted attempt at escape from the island.

Beside him, Eight hops down the bed toward Ben's feet. He sits up and picks up the rabbit, bringing him back toward the top of the bed. Ben glances for a moment at the window of his room and suddenly sees Harold's face outside. Ben jumps up from the bed in surprise but moves too fast and trips forward onto his face. Ben shakes his head, blinks his eyes into focus and looks up. There is no one at the window. He stands up and presses his hands to the glass, looks out at the leaves, wind blowing and the jungle far beyond.

"Harold?" Ben whispers.

He tries to lean to the side, see further out into the trees beyond his window.

"Harold?"

It was not his reflection he saw and Ben does not think it was his imagination, but Harold and his mother are not on the island either. So what – who – is out in the jungle?

The next day Ben packs a bag with his rabbit inside, gets the code to the sonic fence and ventures out into the jungle alone where he meets Richard Alpert.

––––––––––––––––

So, Ben is lost and Harold is gone – There is nothing they can do, nothing they can try. They are trapped apart and must live on alone.

Ben dreams he runs across the ocean toward the mainland which never gets closer while Harold dreams in the opposite direction, running toward an island he cannot find.

––––––––––––––––

Harold learns about farming from his mother. They start off small – vegetables, local markets – so they can build up capital and hire hands to help in the fields. They may not be a big farm but there are only two of them and Harold is a tad smaller than the average farm hand.

"But you're the mechanic, Harold."

"I'm not actually a mechanic, mom," Harold says as he finishes twisting in a new spark plug in the truck.

His mother laughs once. "I swear you're going to be an engineer someday, Harold, with the way you can work with machines." She turns the ignition key and the truck rumbles to life. She smiles at Harold through the windshield. "Better than some men three times your age."

Harold smiles. "Thanks, mom."

His mother turns off the truck again then climbs out of the driver side, closing the door behind her. She puts the keys down on the work bench and picks up a piece of paper.

"Okay, truck is all set. David and Kevin are on the field today." She looks up at Harold. "You do your math homework?"

Harold frowns. "You have my homework on your to do list?" She just smiles and Harold nods. "Yes, it's done. It was easy."

"How long did it take you?"

Harold shrugs.

"Anyway." She folds up the 'to do' list. "Should make a quick trip in to town, we need a new hose and…" She frowns. "I don't have my keys."

Harold frowns too. "Right there, mom."

She stares at him. "Where?"

Harold points at the work bench in front of her. "There."

She looks down and cocks her head as if it is the last place they should have been. "Oh, right, yes." She picks them up and makes a small huffing noise. "Don't know where my head it at lately."

Harold helps the other hands in the fields, rides in the tractor, watches the corn grow from an empty field into tall stalks to get lost in that make him think of Halloween. It is absolutely nothing like living on an island, nothing like the ocean or the jungle.

"What bird is that, Harold?" His mother asks as they clean up dinner on the back porch.

Harold frowns up at the tree in the dimming light. "A Mocking Bird." He picks up his plate and makes a face. "Isn't that kind of an easy one?"

His mother snorts. "Oh well, didn't know you wanted to be quizzed so much after dinner."

"What about that one?" Harold asks pointing at a small bird as it lands on a tree next to the house.

His mother stares at the bird. She presses her lips together and lets out a slow breath. Harold turns back to the bird then looks at his mother again. "Is it a Cow Bird?"

"Yes!" she gasps then smiles at Harold. "Yes, very good, Harold."

Harold tries to think back to before the island, to a house with a grass back yard and suburban living – Ben sitting in the tree house beside him, reading books back to back, crawling into each other's bed at night, Ben laughing the same way Harold does – then now, a farm, dirt roads and flat land with too much space between everything. Too much space between Ben on the island and Harold on land.

––––––––––––––––

Ben looks through the small number of books in the rec center. He finds three copies of Moby Dick but nothing aligned with what he is looking for. The school house book selection is even less helpful – yes, the books are academic but quite traditional and none relate directly to the island at all. To be fair, Ben has no idea if any of the research being conducted on the island has been published or even written down in a book digestible form. If someone wrote about their research here they would have to write about the island, and if they wrote about the island they would have to include the hostiles.

Ben breaks into the orientation building and watches the film, just two sentences about the 'indigenous wildlife' as the reasons for the sonic fence.

"Liar," Ben hisses to himself. Are all adults liars?

When his father is passed out on the couch – every other night, five nights of the week – Ben takes the Dharma orientation binder and flips through, tries to find references to 'the hostiles.' There is a section on security, the sonic fence, and the changes in the code each day.

"Security…" Ben whispers.

Ben checks every Dharma building in the main compound, tries to get his hand on procedural manuals – procedures for the submarine, for requesting supplies, for research documentation, for construction plans, none for the specific research stations or orientation films – only two, the initial island arrival film and the one for medical, neither of much assistance.

"Mr. Goodspeed?"

He turns his head as Ben come up alongside him. "Hey, Ben, what's up?"

"I uh…" Ben clears his throat. "How are you?"

"It's a good day, new project to start up at The Hydra."

"Really?"

"Sorry, can't tell you more, Ben."

They walk down the path toward the Motor Pool and Ben makes himself walk faster so he is a few steps ahead of Mr. Goodspeed.

"That's okay, uh… there… there hasn't been anything more with the hostiles lately, has there?" Ben bites the edge of his lip and wishes he could think up a better way to ask.

Mr. Goodspeed laughs and does not seem to notice Ben's awkwardness. "No, no, things have quieted down. I know there was that one incident not long after you arrived but don't worry about it." Mr. Goodspeed taps the Dharma logo on his uniform. "We have things in hand. The truce is in place despite what happened…"

"Truce?" Ben asks. "What happened?"

Mr. Goodspeed's face falls in the way Ben has begun to recognize in adults – 'I should not have said that.' He stops walking, looks away from Ben and clears his throat. He adjusts his glasses then looks back to Ben. "It's not something you need to worry about, Ben. We are all safe here."

"You said 'truce;' does that mean you talk to them?"

Mr. Goodspeed stares at Ben for a long moment then he smiles again. "I gotta get going, Ben. Research to do. You have a good day, stay out of trouble." Then he keeps walking, his strides longer and a touch quicker than before.

Ben watches the jungle's edge, sneaks into the basement security post to watch the monitors until Phil or Jerry yells at him to leave. He keeps looking, keeps rereading the same pages of Dharma binders hoping to see something he missed, something that will tell him who these people are, how they might be able to help where nothing else can.

Ben goes into the jungle, gets the new code every day and runs past the pylons. He hears whispers, voices just behind him, just to the side of him, and even though he keeps calling they don't answer him, not yet. He knows he should be scared of the voices, and maybe he is, but they seem so much better than going back to that house with only his father, no mother and his brother gone – no Harold, no one to sit beside him, to think just like him, to share life with.

He listens to the whispers and tries to answer, tries to understand, but the jungle keeps telling him to be patient in its silence.

"Why do you want to know?" Annie asks him, her eyes on the stars as they sit on her rooftop.

"Don't you?"

"But what would you want to know?" She tosses a peanut at her mouth but misses. "They're probably savages or something anyway."

"But don't you want to know more? Don't you want to know who they are? Why they're here? What… what they know?"

She gives him a confused look and tosses another peanut into her mouth, making it this time. "What they know?"

"Yes!"

She huffs. "I don't know what you mean."

Ben opens his mouth but closes it again with a huff. He thinks of Richard, Harold's face at the window, the sounds of the jungle that would be a better home than any yellow building of Dharma. He shakes his head and looks at the stars again.

"Ben," Annie says and Ben glances at her again. "The hostiles are out there." She gestures toward the jungle. "We're in here. We're safe from them."

"There's been fights before."

Annie shrugs. "The fence will protect us."

Ben bites his lip, looks back at the sky, does not say what he thinks; 'I don't want to be protected from them.'

If Ben can't leave then the island – if he is really trapped here – the hostiles could be his salvation.

––––––––––––––––

Harold sits in the back of class at school. He finishes homework in class, visits the library every day though this school does not have a computer yet. He doodles octagons inside octagons on his note paper while the teacher talks, reads ahead in every book while the class is three chapters behind.

"You used to live in Portland?" Trevor asks him.

Harold smiles. "Well, the suburbs."

"But with big buildings like New York City?" Matt asks.

"Not exactly."

The boys at lunch smile and preen and ask him questions about tall buildings, 'busy city life,' and the ocean. It's near Portland, right? Is it as big as they say? Have you been on a boat before? Aren't there islands all over the ocean?

"You should read 'The Lord of the Flies,'" Harold says and casually avoids their questions – the ocean smells like fish and salt and when you travel under the water you go to sleep and don't know how far you've gone because the place you want to reach is a mystery.

Under his books, on his desk in class, Harold keeps magazines open with articles about new computer programing languages like C and operating systems like UNIX. He looks up books in the library on machine engineering, one newer volume about personal computer development and another about punch cards.

"And I finally got a separate room from my sister." Kevin grins as he eats his sandwich. "Mom said she was getting too old or whatever."

"Glad I don't have a sister," Matt says. "Brothers are better."

"No way," Trevor says. "All my older brothers do is beat me up!"

Sam snorts but just shakes his head. "Lucky you don't have both."

The other boys start to laugh, Kevin throwing chips at Sam and Matt making faces.

Beside Harold, Anthony frowns and nudges Harold. "Sucks to not have any brothers or sisters at all."

Harold watches the other boys – smiling and laughing and so easily sociable, just as young as him but somehow worlds away and every one of them not right at all. "Yes, it does."

––––––––––––––––

Ben spends as much time as he can away from the house. He studies in the rec center or plays ping pong with Greg or Aaron if they'll let him; he visits Annie's house or sits with her on the roof; he comes to school early or sits with his lunch out by the far pylons watching the wind through the jungle trees. He sits out on the dock over the lagoon at night until he feels himself falling asleep – imagines Harold seated beside him with his hand over Ben's.

At home, his father is no better – worse even – than before they first came to the island as a family of four.

"You think life is simple, just go to school every day. And what do I do? I mop up that same room when you're gone!"

Ben takes his dinner to his room, tries to slip past his father's line of sight.

"Whole damn island is a trap. They say they're doing important research but what have I seen? Nothing."

Ben sits with Eight on his bed, door cracked so he'll have more of a warning and does his homework. He writes out the taxonomic ranks of species – life, domain, kingdom, phylum – to give himself more to do, something to tell his father if he asks, something to give him a reason to stay hidden in here with his rabbit and the empty bed on the other side of the room.

"You're lucky I don't just leave you on this island alone, you know. Could go back to Portland and find something better than this."

Ben almost says, 'so why don't you?'

When he sits on the roof with Annie, he starts drawing a map, the Dharma compound at the center and then paths leading out from there; the lagoon and submarine in one corner and the far pylon fence in another. He carefully sketches beyond that in the back of the rec center, tries to figure out land marks of the jungle beyond the fences. He puts a star on the spot where he met Richard. He makes a note of every place he can remember hearing the whispers, feeling the eyes of the people he wants to be on him.

At home, his father lies on the couch, drinks beer after beer and Ben wonders just what it is adults see in the beverage. It never seems to make them any happier.

"You look too much like your mother sometimes," he says and keeps frowning like everything is Ben's fault.

Sometimes they still laugh together, sometimes it can be happy. "Want to learn how to play chess?"

"I know the name of the pieces."

His father smiles. "Well, it's all about strategy, okay? The king is most important." He taps the piece. "Everyone else protects the king."

"Protect the king." Ben smiles and moves forward a pawn two spaces.

But usually Ben locks himself in the bathroom, opens the medicine cabinet and holds a piece of gauze against his bloody nose. He puts a band aid over the cut on his shoulder where he hit the corner of the side table. He stares at his reflection in the mirror – sees Harold smiling back at him, smiling from far away. Ben wonders how no one can see it; how can no one around him care?

He thinks of running, running to Mr. Goodspeed or Annie's parents or his teacher Olivia or even Mr. LaFleur in security, just someone to tell, to help, to save him. But if they have not said something by now – because no one in Dharma really sees anything beyond their research notebooks and stations and no one in Dharma cares – if they have been silent for this long then what would they really do to help Ben if he asked?

––––––––––––––––

Harold comes home from school on a Wednesday to find the kitchen filled with smoke.

"Mom!" Harold screams, throwing off his backpack.

He runs into the kitchen and sees fire on the stove top, a pot that is half melted through in the middle of it and smoke billowing up to the ceiling. Harold puts his arm over his mouth to breathe and inches closer to the stove. He gets close enough to turn off the eyes on top then pulls off his jacket. He throws the jacket on top of the fire then jumps backward just in case he miscalculated. The fire disappears under Harold's jacket, enough of an oxygen block to choke out the flames.

"Mom!" Harold shouts again, coughs twice. "Mom, where are you?"

There is no answer. Harold runs down the hall, checks her bedroom, checks the bathroom.

"Mom, please!"

"Harold?"

He spins around as his mother comes into the house through the door to the back yard. She smiles at him wiping dirt off her hands onto her jeans.

"Have a good day at school?" She sniffs and looks around. "Why is it so smoky in here?"

Harold huffs out a breath and stares at her.

Harold sits in the waiting room while his mother speaks with the doctor. The table in front of him has three magazines in a stack, all entertainment based. One of the magazines has a date from two years ago while another is from last month. Harold rubs one hand over the other then switches. He pulls his hands apart and puts his hands on the arms on the chair.

"Do you want something to play with, honey?" The receptionist suddenly asks him.

Harold jerks slightly in surprise but just shakes his head 'no' at her. He doesn't bother to tell her that he is more than ten years old now and something to play with while his mother talks to a doctor about forgetting to turn the stove off so their kitchen catches on fire is hardly helpful. She would probably just go get a Mr. Potato head anyway. Harold has started to notice the older he gets that some adults lump all children in at the age five forever.

"Time to go."

Harold jerks again, this time at his mother appearing at the entrance to the hall next to where Harold sits. Behind her stands a doctor with graying hair. He smiles in a thin line at Harold but it is obviously a polite smile, nothing happy or relieved or even sympathetic in his expression. Harold does not smile back and his skin feels like it is covered in tiny pins.

"Harold," his mother says in the car as they drive back out toward their farm. "I am sorry about what happened the other day."

"It's okay. I put out the fire and the stove is fine."

"No, Harold, it's not okay." She breathes in and Harold sees her hands tighten around the steering wheel. "Your mother has a problem." She glances at Harold then back at the road. "And it is only going to get worse."

"But the doctor can fix it?" Harold asks. "That's what doctors do."

His mother clears her throat and puts on the turn signal as they roll up to a stop sign. "No, sweetheart." She looks over at Harold as the car stops. "It's not something the doctor can fix."

"What?"

"Harold, I know you've noticed and it hasn't just been this time." She clears her throat again and swallows slowly. "I'm… my memory, it's…" She sighs and Harold can hear a catch in her voice. "It's breaking down, honey. Now, it's not going to happen overnight so I don't want you to worry right now but…"

"I can help you," Harold says quickly. "I can help you remember."

"That's sweet, darling, but the point is my memory is going to get worse over time and there is nothing we will be able to do to stop it."

"If you can't remember there has to be something we can do so you can remember, right? We can fix it!"

She smiles and touches his face. "You can't fix me, Harold."

The next week Harold visits the hardware store in town. He picks rolls of wires and a soldering iron, finds some needle nose plyers and small light bulbs. His mother may think he cannot help her but Harold knows his abilities, he knows he can build things, he has read enough – he has seen what computers can do on the island – and if he can build her a memory then everything will be fine. He can build a machine to help her because if he has lost Ben he cannot lose his mother too.

––––––––––––––––

Ben sits on one of the swings on the small playground near the Dharma residential houses. School is done for the day and Annie had to go home for a celebration dinner for her mother. Ben's backpack sits near one of the metal poles of the swing set. No one else is on the playground; most of the other children went straight home after class and Ben has been sitting on the swing for a long time now.

Ben is not really swinging, just moving a little forward then back with his toes still touching the ground. He used to enjoy swings a lot. He and Harold would complete to see who could swing higher, who was willing to jump off at the highest point, who could land on their feet when they jumped off without falling. One time Harold jumped off a second before Ben, twisted his ankle and ruined Ben's own landing with their shared pain. They used to swing in time, matching up for down, just watching each other until one of them broke the spell. Swinging with Annie is not the same as swinging with Harold.

"Hi there."

Ben looks up, the sun partially blocked by a woman with blond hair in a blue jump suit – she must work at the motor pool. Ben stops the slight movement of his swing but does not respond. She crouches down so she is eye to eye with him.

She smiles again and holds out her hand. "I'm Juliet."

Ben takes her hand and shakes it once. "I'm Ben."

"Yeah." She nods. "I realized we hadn't been introduced before."

He frowns. "Were we supposed to be?"

She makes a strange face then laughs once. "Uh, I guess not but I've been here a while now and it seemed strange to not know someone with there being not so many of us."

"Do kids count?"

"Count?"

"As someone?"

She makes the same strange face, though this time it looks almost sad. Ben wonders why he said that and his hands tighten around the chains of the swing.

"Well, I've met your father so I think I should know you too. How long have you lived on the island, Ben?"

Ben shrugs. "Long enough."

She raises her eyebrows. "What does that mean?" Ben looks away – long enough to lose something, long enough to be alone, long enough to hate it. "Ben." The tone of her voice makes Ben turn back. Her face has changed, like she is actually taking him seriously like adults never do. "Ben, have you…" Her voice gets a bit softer. "Have you been outside the sonic fence?"

A warning bell rings loudly in Ben's head. "Once with my father. He had to make a delivery to The Flame."

She nods but keeps looking at him. "Only once?"

Ben forces himself not to look away and thinks of what Annie might say, of what other children might say. "Why? Is there something dangerous out there?"

Juliet purses her lips just slightly and Ben knows she is not falling for his feint. "I think you know, Ben."

"Juliet."

Juliet's face drops to neutral and Ben looks up over her head at Mr. LaFleur behind her. He looks at Ben with a hard expression then his eyes shift to Juliet still crouched in front of Ben.

"Juliet," he says again.

"Ben?" Juliet says still looking at Ben.

"Juliet, you shouldn't." Mr. LaFleur says in a half whisper. "You're the one that told me that, remember?"

Juliet breaks eye contact with Ben and dips her head slightly. She looks up at Ben again, smiles then stands up. "It was good to meet you, Ben," she says as she turns away and walks over to Mr. LaFleur.

As they walk away, Ben realizes she did not tell him her last name.

––––––––––––––––

Harold sits at the table beyond the living room, the back door in front of him and the kitchen on the other side of the living room. He has always liked this spot because he can see into the living room, the kitchen and outside all at once. In front of him he is working on a proto computer. He knows it is not as high tech as the personal computer they had in school back in Oregon or the one on the island, but this one is special; this one could be a solution.

"Harold?"

He glances over at his mother as she walks into the room – sundress today, she must have to go in to town for something.

"What are you working on?" She asks as she pulls out a chair beside him.

Harold smiles. "It's an array of flow…." He stops as he sees his mother's brow furrowing. He leans back a little. "It's a memory system."

Her lips press together in a thin line and she nods. "Oh?"

"Watch," Harold says, putting down his soldering iron.

He clicks the input lever to flash the light. His mother tilts her head. "M?"

He clicks again. "O?" and then "M?"

"Now look." Harold changes the input, flips the other switch and the light flashes the same dots and dashes of Morse code back to her.

Her face spreads into a wide smile. "Harold…"

"It's for you," Harold says, "to help you remember stuff." He glances at the kitchen, the walls repainted but still some bits of extra metal melted onto the stove. "Like turning off the stove."

His mother nods and stands up. She steps a bit closer and runs one hand over Harold's hair. "Harold, we talked about this. What's wrong with me it…" She shakes her head. "It can't be fixed."

"But this can help you." He points at the machine. "What if I could make a machine with lots of memory, one that could think?"

"Harold…"

"It could remember what you can't. It could help you and I can just build better and better systems, computers even, just for you."

"Harold." She touches his arm then puts her other hand over his. "I know you're afraid."

"I'm not –"

"Harold, I'm still here. I am still your mother. What is going to happen will happen and we need to be ready but I'm not going anywhere before then."

Harold clenches his jaw and just nods because he cannot voice his fears out loud – if Ben is trapped away and his mother disappears then what will Harold do then?

Harold sits in his room at night, reads 'I, Robot' and thinks about a future where the robots think for them and he closes the book only half way through. It is not a fantasy he wants. He thinks instead about sailing a boat out to sea until he finds the one place he cannot, the one person he cannot find.

––––––––––––––––

Ben and Annie sit at a back table in the cafeteria with their lunches between them. Annie is eating her sandwich as if she hasn't eaten in days while Ben mostly pulls pieces off of his sandwich and crumbles them up. His hip is still throbbing from last night and it is distracting him enough that he does not feel like eating.

"Does your dad ever talk about the hostiles?" Ben asks Annie suddenly.

She glances up from her chips and frowns. "What?"

"He works at the Tempest, right?" She nods. "So he's seen some of them, right? He's had to."

Annie tilts her head. "I think he has but he doesn't like to talk to us about it. He just tells my mom not to worry."

Ben frowns and pulls another piece of the crust off of his sandwich. "What if the hostiles aren't bad?"

Annie laughs once. "What do you mean?"

"What I said, what if they're not bad?"

"You mean what if they are good? They're called 'hostiles.'"

"They were here first, weren't they?"

"I guess but –"

"So doesn't that mean that we're the bad ones by invading their island?"

Annie frowns again. "Who says it's their island? It's not part of a country or anything."

"Exactly why it must be theirs; they were here first," Ben repeats.

Annie shakes her head. "But we don't even know who they are or why they're here. We're here to do good."

"The research?"

"Of course!"

"Annie…" Ben huffs and lowers his voice. "We don't even know what the research is."

"It's important, Ben. Come on, why else would Dharma and all of us be here if it wasn't? You said yourself before with Harold that the island is special."

Ben tenses at the sounds of his brother's name and looks back at her. Annie smiles and puts a potato chip in her mouth. "It's important and even if the hostiles were here first, we're here to do good."

"How can you be sure when they are trying to fight us?"

"Our parents are here for the research and it's important. I know it is. My dad says it is."

"I…" Ben shakes his head and looks away. He bites the edge of his lip and cannot tell Annie what she has yet to figure out but Ben knows all too well – your parents are not always right.

Ben sits in his room at night, reads 'Gulliver's Travels' and thinks about strange tribes and a flying island in the sky. He closes the book and thinks he must be on that island, flying through the ocean further away from where he would rather be, the one person he would rather be with.

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Harold looks up one day – the sun shining too brightly on the flat land outside, circuit board in front of him, a small tendril of steam coming up from the soldering iron and no one seated at the table with him – he realizes it has been years now since he has seen Ben, since he has been alone.

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Ben looks up one day – in class as Olivia talks about tectonic plates, Annie seated behind him writing out notes with a dull pencil, Ben with doodles of jungle trees in the corner of his page and the desk beside Ben still empty – he realizes it has been years now since he has seen Harold, since he has been alone.

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Ben runs through the jungle with Sayid right behind him. They are cutting through until they can reach the north road toward the pylons. Ben has the code to the fence that day memorized, he just hopes no one thought to change it with their escape and the burning car. He keeps telling himself as they run that there has not been enough time yet and everyone is still going to be distract by the car.

"Come on," Ben says to urge Sayid on.

Sayid is only the second hostile Ben has met and for some reason he reminds Ben of Richard, dark and mysterious but speaks to Ben like a person and not a child. Richard is the one who sent Sayid, sent him to get Ben finally. Now is the moment, now is Ben's chance to get out, to be free, to join the hostiles and be happy again.

Leaves whip by Ben's face, the light of the moon enough to see by then Ben trips. He moves to stand up but Syaid pushes him back making shushing noises. Then Ben hears the van on the road. They both stay still and wait. Ben hears the door open and Sayid stands up, walking closer to look.

"Jin!"

"Sayid?"

Ben sees the two of them step closer together but Ben cannot hear what they are saying. He knows Jin works with security but he has never really spoken to him. Is Jin a hostile that has been living with them all this time or is Sayid saying something to make him leave? Then Ben hears Jin say something about calling LaFleur and the radio crackles. Ben holds his breath. Suddenly Sayid hits Jin once, twice and Jin is knocked out on the road.

"Whoa!" Ben says as he comes out of the jungle onto the road. "Where'd you learn to do that?" He grins then looks down the road. There is no one else around. "Come on, we better go. He called LaFleur."

He looks back and Sayid is still crouched low by the ground. "You were right about me," Sayid says.

"What?"

"I am a killer."

Ben stares then Sayid holds up a gun and Ben hears a banging noise. For a moment everything is frozen like time has stopped and the world is waiting for Ben to exhale. As he falls forward, the pain stabbing for an instant but only half there with the shock, Ben realizes Sayid just shot him and he wonders in the back of his head why Sayid betrayed him. Then he hits the ground.

And Harold wakes up screaming. For a second or two Harold cannot see, it is only dark and his torso feels like it's on fire, his stomach and his chest. He has never felt something hurt like this before. He clenches his eyes shut and tries to make it go away, tries to think past it but he just gasps and cries and cannot focus on anything but how much it hurts.

"Harold! Harold, stop, calm down, talk to me, Harold!"

It takes Harold a long minute or two to realize the voice is real, it's his mother; she is trying to hold him down by his shoulders and make his stop thrashing.

"Harold, what is wrong? Please, Harold!"

"Mom," he manages to groan out.

He gasps and shoves back the sheets of his bed to see what is wrong. There are no marks on him, no cuts or bruises or savage animal eating his intestines. He looks up at his mother crouched over him, her hands still on his shoulders.

"Something is wrong..." Harold says, holding his arms over his mid-section.

"What's wrong? Did you have a nightmare?"

"No."

"What was it? Were you –"

"No, it wasn't… a dream, it… it hurts," Harold gasps and he tries to breathe normally but his body still hurts, his chest and his stomach. It feels worse than when Ben broke his arm, than when Harold fell off his bike on the pavement, than when their father first hurt Ben – and still does, Harold feels whispers of that too more often as the years go by – worse than when Victor at school kicked him in the knee. It feels so much worse than any of those times. "Something is wrong with Ben."

His mother frowns. "Ben?"

"Something is wrong with Ben… It… has to be…"

"Ben…" She gives him a look like she does not understand, like she's forgotten what he knows she has seen before. "Ben isn't here, Harold."

Harold cries, tears down his face and sweat making the hair at his temples stick down. "No… no…" Harold gasps and his vision does not seem right; it's like he can see lights above him, people talking and he does not understand why the two of them have to be like this. "He's hurt… Ben is hurt… something is wrong."

"Harold, listen to me." His mother grabs his face between her hands to make him focus on her. "This is not like when you were younger; this is not a game."

"No…"

"Tell me what is wrong!"

"Ben…" Harold says and he feels himself falling back into some kind of sleep. "It's Ben."

Ben wakes up, he thinks he does, it's hard to tell because he is still in pain but he also feels numb. He sees sky and sun and feels the ground under him moving. He wonders if any of this was worth it. He wonders if it is just him and his dad now – if his mother and Harold are really gone – then why do they hate each other so much? Why don't they care about each other even more because they are all they both have?

Ben, more than anything else, wants his brother back.

Harold wakes up, groggy and sore and he is not sure where he is. Is he home or on the island? Is Ben finally back with him? He sees the ceiling of his room, feels the movement of a car, sees his mother asleep in a chair beside his bed. He wonders what Ben is feeling; does Ben know how Harold feels this too? He wonders how his mother cannot understand. He wonders why she is going to eventually slip away from him when she is all he has now.

Harold, more than anything else, wants his brother back.

Ben wakes up inside of some kind of hut as a man with thick curly hair sits down on a stool beside his bed.

"Hello, Benjamin."

Ben realizes suddenly that his mind is a blank. "What happened?"

"You were injured."

"How?"

"You don't remember?"

He does not. "Where am I?" Though even as he asks Ben knows the answer.

"You're among friends. We're going to take care of you."

Ben feels more and more at ease as he talks to this man, Charles Widmore, as he tells Ben how the island saved him. Ben cannot explain it but now something has changed, something about him. This place, these people, is where he belongs and he believes it more than anything.

When Harold wakes up his mother is not in the room. He feels a residual ache through his body, as if he has been walking or moving or doing something for days without end. He sits up carefully and the ache centers around his middle. He looks down, rubs a hand across his stomach but he can think of no reason why he would be in pain.

"Harold?"

He looks up at his mother in the door way.

"Mom?"

She rushes in, puts her hand against his forehead, looks in his eyes. "Honey, how are you feeling? Are you still in pain?"

"What?"

"You've been… Harold, are you all right?"

"What happened? I…" He looks at the wall and all he can think of is Ben – Ben happy, Ben with him, Ben far away and growing different every day but he does not know why. He looks back at his mother. "What happened?"

When Ben returns to Dharma a few days later – still no memory of how he was hurt – The Incident has occurred at the Swan, Annie and her family are gone along with half of Dharma and Ben is not one of these people anymore.