"Sawyer?"
Turning in his seat, Sawyer gazed at the man sitting beside him in the car. They sat outside the bus depot. James had a bus ticket to Sydney in his hand. Only two people sat on a bench waiting for the bus to arrive.
"How did she die?"
Looking down, Sawyer wished he could say he didn't know. He'd seen the man walk into their house, their beautifully decorated house and watched him shoot her as she stood at the kitchen sink, her hands still sudsy. Sawyer had to wonder where their eight-year-old was, and whether he was home or with her in-laws.
"He shot her," Sawyer replied. He was staring out at the wall of the depot building.
"Was Maddie home?"
"I don't think so. She would have come running," Sawyer wished he could say more, say that she'd said their baby wasn't home.
"Yeah. She's supposed to be at my folk's place," James's eyes were red rimmed and he kept sniffling. "I…I'll have to get her in the morning."
The bus could be seen driving down the dusty road. The two people waiting stood, their bags in hand.
"That's your bus," Sawyer said, popping the lock on James's door. "Good luck."
"Why are you doing this for me?"
Sawyer didn't answer. He had no answer.
"Because I have to. Now I saved your skin, now get!" he shouted angrily.
"You didn't have to. There was obviously some kind of reward for handing me in and you didn't take it. I got rid of the product because I was afraid of getting caught, I chickened out so they wanted me bad," James looked desperate. The bus was pulling into the parking lot.
"I…I didn't…I," Sawyer couldn't get it out. Instead he pushed open his door and came around the car. Seizing James by the arm he yanked him from the car.
"Get on that bus!" Sawyer demanded, shoving James in that direction.
It was only when he saw the two men who had been waiting walking towards them that he heard the click of a gun being loaded.
"She's back," Charlie said worriedly to Claire, who was clutching Aaron so tightly to her chest the baby was crying out. "The French chick."
"Whoa whoa whoa!" Hurley came around the tent. "That French lady? What was her name? Daniel?"
"Danielle!" snapped Claire, turning back to Charlie. "Are you sure?"
"She's been feeding Satine information…"
"Charlie!"
From around the bend came Ana-Lucia. She wasn't often seen on this part of the beach, and it surprised everyone to see she was carrying a bag.
"Have you seen Jack?" she asked him, avoiding the glares of Claire and Hurley.
"He's busy," Charlie said, his eyes emotionless.
"Well when you see him tell him I'm looking for him. It's important, about that girl," she said, before heading off down the beach.
Back at the caves. John and Kate were busily trying to get together the maps Sayid had taken from Danielle's makeshift home before she blew it up. They were scrambling through papers and old documents they'd salvaged from the crash.
"I found the map of Black Rock," Kate said, pulling it out. Some of it was smeared, possibly from the moisture from the nearby waterfall. "And some notes."
"Here's the rest of it," John stopped halfway through handing it to Kate.
Kate turned to look at what John had seen and anger filled her inside. Ana-Lucia was walking out of the jungle, looking serious as she shifted the weight of the bag she was carrying to her other shoulder.
"Where's Jack?" she asked them without even a greeting.
"He's busy," Kate said. In truth, Jack had taken Satine back to the hatch to evaluate her. Jack seemed to firmly believe she was suffering some kind of mental block. "What is it?"
"I found something," putting down the bag, she unzipped it and pulled out some large yellow material that was wet and grimy. Seaweed was all over it but it was clearly some kind of rubber floatation device.
"It says it's from a cruise ship," she said, flattening it out. John came around and helped her widen it.
"This thing looks like it was torn to pieces on the rocks. How did she survive that?" he said quietly, more to himself than to the two women.
"Maybe she wasn't in it. I doubt a cruise ship sank, how often does that happen? Maybe this was thrown overboard with her but she…"
"There's blood in it," Ana-Lucia pointed out, showing the streaks of stained blood on the inside creases. "Someone was in it."
"We need to show this to Jack and to the girl too. Maybe it'll jog her memory," John began folding the raft again and stopped. Something silvery was caught in the netting across the bottom of it. Unfolding parts, he was able to untangle a fine silver chain with a heavy ruby-like stone on it shaped like a heart.
"What is that?" Kate breathed.
"A very expensive gift," John said, pocketing it and folding the raft.
"Why do I have to?" Satine was asking Jack as he made her follow his pen with her eyes.
"Because you just told us that a French woman has been telling you our secrets," Jack said quietly. They hadn't told her about Danielle. The last thing Jack wanted to do was provoke her delusions. "And I think you may have injured yourself."
"I didn't," she said angrily. Jack continued to make her follow the pen and then she stopped, crossing her arms. "I'm fine!"
"No, you're not," Jack sat back on the seat. He'd sat her down on one of the beds and had tested all of her reflexes, felt her abdomen and even listened to her breathing but could find nothing significantly wrong with her. She was tiny for her age, which he felt might be cause to think she'd been at sea for longer than she knew.
"You've been through some traumatic experience that led to you either swimming or floating across the ocean to this island. Something happened to you, and it was so terrible your mind is forcing you to forget it," he said firmly to her. "Don't you understand that if we can find out how you got here, it may be key to getting us off this island?"
"You don't think this is hard for me?" she snapped, her eyes blazing. "I don't remember anything! I don't even know when the last time I saw my mother was before the bar."
"Bar?" Jack asked. "What bar?"
"The one I was at," she said plainly, and then thought for a moment. "Wait, I forgot about the bar."
"You're remembering." Jack tried not to get too excited he knew this could even be a fake memory. "What about the bar?"
"It was smoky and gross. I couldn't order a drink but they said it was okay if I sat at the bar. I think he only said okay because he knew my mother. She was popular," she looked down. "But it couldn't have been in Australia where we were visiting because everyone there was American."
"Okay, just go slowly…" Jack leaned over and closed the blind to make it darker and cooler in there. "It's a bar. Who is the bartender?"
"A man…a black man.…he said his name was…"
There was a crash behind him and he turned to see Michael standing over a smashed glass.
"Sorry man," he bent and was picking up the pieces but his eyes were on Satine. "We…uh…haven't met."
"Satine," Jack said, "this is Michael."
"Nice to meet you," she said quietly.
"You too. Uh…Hurley's shift starts in five minutes. I'm…um going to leave early to get some air I'm…not feeling to well," Michael threw the glass away.
"You okay?" Jack asked, although he knew what was wrong with Michael. Anyone who came in contact with Satine seemed to be the. And Jack didn't doubt Michael had been listening.
Michael nodded and hurried out. Jack sighed and looked back at Satine.
"Shift?" she asked.
It took Jack five minutes to explain the computer and the time limit to her, and by then several people had arrived and were eating and talking so he knew this wasn't the best place to have a private talk. Just as he was about to suggest they go somewhere else, John came storming in with Ana-Lucia and Kate at his heels.
Jack hadn't seen Ana-Lucia in weeks. She'd been living on the other side of the beach, only appearing to fill her water bottles and eat when she could. Mostly he knew she was picking her own fruit and killing small animals for food although Jack doubted her ability because she looked thinner and paler. Sometimes he wondered about her, and remembered meeting her at the bar before the flight. Then he would remember Shannon and all emotion would leave him and he'd stare at her coldly.
"We found something," John said.
"I found something," Ana-Lucia corrected him. John had gone to open the bag but she grabbed his wrist, looking around. "We need privacy."
Jack nodded and took Satine's arm, leading them back into the other room and closing the sliding doors. Flicking on the light, John pointed to the bench against the wall and Jack, Satine, and Kate all sat down on it as John opened the bag.
"What is that?" Jack asked in the same awe-struck voice Kate had.
"A raft. A rubber safety raft. We're guessing she floated here on it but it's so badly torn up I don't think she was in it when it hit the rocks," John laid it out flat and smoothed it down so the words "Australian Cruise Line" could be seen on the side.
"A cruise? So she was on a cruise? But why would she need a…"
Kate had stopped talking when she looked over at Satine, whose eyes had gone wide. She was staring at John, who was holding in his hand a fine silver chain with a ruby heart at the bottom.
"Are you remembering?" John asked her, coming forward and holding it right before the girl's face.
"No," she said, her face suddenly fearful as she stood and stumbled as she tried to back away from John. "No…"
"Satine," Jack jumped up and tried to go to her but she screamed.
"Stay away from me!" she shouted, trying to flatten herself against the wall. "Just…don't come near me."
"She's probably having a flashback," John said, still holding the necklace out.
"Put that away!" Kate shouted at John, but he refused.
"No. No…" Satine was staring at the item in John's hand as though it were a gun pointed at her. Her eyes flicked from the raft on the ground to John's hand and suddenly she looked very pale and Jack rushed forward as she crumbled.
"Did she faint?" Ana-Lucia asked as Jack turned her over.
But Satine's eyes were open and she was trying to get up again.
"What did you do to her?" Satine demanded, scrambling to get away from Jack, who stood back up. "What did you do?"
She crawled away from Jack into the corner against a cabinet and curled her legs to her chest, hugging herself tightly as she trembled. Kate once again felt sorry for the girl, but John continued to hold the necklace out as she stared at it.
"What did they do?" Jack whispered, on his knees only a foot away from her.
Slowly, Satine looked back at the raft and then at the necklace.
"They shot her."