Once again Ben found himself setting foot in the town he used to live in, but this time it wasn't a dream. The place was real and the condition it was in matched Ben's opinion of it: Wrecked, broken, lifeless. It had been abandoned a long time ago and without anyone to take care of the barracks they were left at the mercy of wind and weather and a black smoke monster that Ben hoped wasn't around now.

The thought of entering his old house still intimidated him. He knew that if he did, he'd go into Alex's room and would most likely not come out of it alive. So instead he went to the last place his mind had been: the cafeteria. Maybe because a small part of him hoped this was a dream again and he'd find his mother there. But when he opened the doors of the cafeteria, it wasn't her that he met. Sitting on the ground was another woman; someone else's mother and a lonely soul who was, like Ben, looking for her lost lover.

"Hello, Sun." Ben said to her and noticed she was holding a framed picture in her hands. Immediately he glanced at the empty spot on the wall where a frame was missing – it was the same picture his mother had looked at in his dream.

Sun raised her head and wiped cold tears off her face. "What do you want?" she asked.

Ben walked over to her, trying to take a look at the photograph but she was covering it with her hands. "May I?" he asked and pointed at the picture.

Sun shrugged and handed him the frame.

"Is this…?" Ben froze as his eyes settled on the familiar faces in the photograph. "Dharma Recruits of 1977." he read out loud and instantly realised what his mother had been trying to tell him. The picture showed about a dozen people, some of whom Ben didn't recognise. But three of them he definitely knew without a doubt: Jack, Kate and Hurley.

When Sun stood up, she seemed weak in the knees, fragile yet still determined. Ben knew the state she was in, the mode she was in. She had stopped living and started functioning instead in order to survive. Ben had been doing this for the past three years since his daughter's death. He hadn't even known any other way of existing anymore until John came back into his life. But pitying her was useless – he knew this because of all the pitiful eyes that had lingered on him but never came close to mending the wounds.

"Do you understand what this means?!" he said with excitement and tried his best at being his new self, friendly, honest, and hoped that she would notice. Because he knew exactly why she came back to the island, why she was crying, and it made him think that maybe together it would be easier for both of them.

"Yes." Sun said and buried her face in her hands. "It means I'm never going to see my husband again."

"No. Sun, it means quite the opposite. I am sure Jin is with them. And John…" Ben shed a tear of joy that landed on the picture he was still holding on to. "…he is probably there, too. He's trying to find me. It's just not the right time yet."

Sun frowned. "Why would I believe a word you said?"

Ben closed his eyes. He knew she had every right not to believe him and that there was hardly anything he could do to make her trust him. But he could at least try. "I am sorry, Sun."

She swallowed a cynical laugh and looked away from him.

"I truly am and I know that I caused you a lot of pain." Ben said and tried to find the right words, any words to express how bad he felt about what he did. "That freighter exploded because of me, because I couldn't control my anger-" He took a deep breath to suppress the aching pressure in his chest that almost forced him to tears. But he knew that he had no right to cry in this moment, it was Sun who had to grieve now so she could find her way back to hope. "I killed him because he shot my daughter, I didn't care about the consequences, didn't care about anyone else. I am sorry that I put all of you in danger, I am sorry that you thought Jin was dead, and I am sorry that your daughter never met her father."

Sun cried without making any noise, she just stood in the middle of the room with a blank expression while tears rolled down her cheeks. But she listened, she faced him and it told him that he was doing the right thing, that she began to see that he understood her. And though it was never his intention, it also made himself feel better.

"I am sorry." Ben said once again and finally failed to hold back the tears. "I don't expect you to forgive me, Sun, because I can never forgive myself. I just hope you can find a way to believe when I say that nothing is lost forever. You will see him again, I know it."