"When we learn how to fly, we forget how to walk.

When we learn how to sing, don't want to hear each other talk.

When we know what we want, we forget what we need.

When you find who you are, you forget about me."

-Train

*A few days earlier*

A brunette haired woman, wearing jeans and a casual sweater, sat alone at a table in a small diner in Los Angeles, absentmindedly sipping her coffee. Her attention was focused on the man seated at the counter across the room, who was slowly working his way through a slice of the diner's finest apple pie. But that pie was not what had her attention. No, her attention was on the bag that was slung over the back of the man's chair. It was the same sort of bag a mailman might carry, but a mailman's bag would not have that logo on it. From across the room, she could barely make it out, but there was, without a doubt, the logo of the Dharma Initiative on that bag. But why, she wondered, would a man be carrying a Dharma bag now, about forty-some years since the existence of the Initiative?

After sipping her coffee and none-too inconspicuously looking the man's way for another few minutes, her curiosity finally got the better of her, and she stood, coffee cup in hand, and went over to the counter of the diner.

"Can I get a refill on this?" she asked the waitress behind the counter, taking a seat a few bar stools away from the man with the Dharma bag. "…and maybe a slice of that delicious looking pie this guy here has," she added with a pointed glance at the only other customer seated at the counter.

The man did not so much as glance her way, still staring holes into the remainder of his pie, his face shadowed by the long locks of dirty-blond hair that reached halfway down his neck. He poked at his pie absentmindedly with his fork, lost in thought, as if that pie held some hidden answers to his unasked questions.

Both of them were silent for a few minutes while the woman thought about the man and his out-of-place Dharma bag. She figured that the only way the man would be affiliated with the Dharma Initiative would be if he was either in the Initiative himself, or he spent time on that island during Dharma's time. She figured by what she could see of him that he was no more than a couple of years older than her at the most. That ruled out the possibility that he was a Dharma member, for she had been a mere child herself when the Initiative was in effect. But perhaps he had been a child on that island alongside her.

Maybe he was the boy…

No, he was not the boy she had befriended in her childhood. She chided herself for even letting that thought enter her mind. Of course he was not the boy. The blond hair told her so simply enough.

Oh, how she had often thought about that boy throughout the years. She wondered about him, even now. She wondered what had become of him, if he had survived the incident after she and her mother had been evacuated with so many others, and if he had, what kind of man he was today.

Certainly, he was no Prince Charming, but then again, neither were any of the men she had dated in her lifetime, most definitely not her ex-husband. And here she was, divorced and single, with her fondest memories of any man stuck with that shy little boy from her childhood.

She would find him someday, of that she had always been positive. She had known from the beginning that finding him would not be easy. But never had she imagined it would be so hard. It was as if that boy had disappeared from the face of the Earth.

There had been times when she had wished she could go back to the start, never leave the island, never leave the boy…

But since it was not possible to travel through time, travel back to her days on the island spent with the boy; she had dismissed those thoughts quickly after they had arisen.

She was suddenly jostled from her thoughts when a plate was set in front of her with a tempting slice of pie on it. The waitress poured fresh coffee into the woman's mug, smiling a signature waitress smile at her soft "Thank you," before turning and going back into the kitchen behind her.

She pushed the thoughts of the boy on the island out of her mind. It was no use trying to find him. Besides, that boy had probably forgotten all about her long ago.

She shot another glance the man's way, and did a double-take when she realized he was no longer seated there.

She quickly turned in her seat when she heard the bells on the door of the diner jingle, and saw the man's retreating figure as he exited the diner and turned to go down the street. The woman hastily threw a few bills on the counter beside her untouched pie and coffee and went outside after him. She spotted him on the street corner, waiting for an opportunity to cross the street through the busy Los Angeles traffic. She quickly caught up with him, thinking fast of what she should say to get him to share with her who he was and whether he was with Dharma. Whether he wanted her to know or not, she would learn the secret of the man with the Dharma bag.

Before she could approach him, however, a young woman's voice called out above the cacophony of the traffic.

"Dad!"

The man turned and smiled at someone behind the woman and before she knew it a young woman, maybe in her early twenties, was throwing her arms around the man and he was returning the embrace with a smile on his face.

The woman had lost her chance at speaking with the man, but in that moment when he had turned and she had seen his face for the first time, she had realized why it was that the man had a Dharma Initiative bag.

And although he was not the boy from the island, and although she was instantly confused as to why this man looked the same way he did forty years ago, she knew this man, and a soft whisper escaped her mouth as she watched him with his daughter.

"LaFleur…"