"I can't believe it! You're alive!" I say. Jin puts his finger up to his lips and gestures to the van. The four of us crawl into the back and Jin takes off to a giant field.
"Why can't we talk?" Jack asks.
"Please," is all Jin says.
We get out of the car and Jin rolls up the window, muffling his voice as he speaks into a walkie talkie. We stand around and a blue jeep comes over the hill. Another man in a DHARMA suits jumps out and walks over to us.
He's clean shaven and wearing a pair of wired glasses, sideburns growing out just like Jin. He takes off his glasses to get a better look at us. Sawyer's face holds a look of pure shock.
"I can't believe it!" I yell, running into Sawyer's arms, just like I used to, squeezing him around the middle.
"Easy on the ribs there, Brown Eyes," he says, laughing.
"'Brown Eyes.' I can't believe I actually missed that."
"Missed you, too, Tia."
Hurley and Sawyer share a big hug, Hurley lifting him off the ground. He and Jack shake hands. He and Kate hug tightly.
"You're really here," Sawyer says. "Son of a bitch actually did it! Locke said he was gonna bring you back, but where is he?"
Kate looks down at the ground. Jack looks up at Sawyer. "John's dead."
"Dead? How?"
"Doesn't matter. He's gone."
"So what's up with you guys and the old DHARMA jumpsuits?" Hurley asks.
"You didn't tell 'em?" Sawyer asks, turning to Jin.
"No. I was waiting for you," Jin says.
"Tell us what?" I ask.
"We're in the DHARMA Initiative," Sawyer says.
"They came back to the Island?" Jack asks, confused.
"No. We came back. And so did you. It's 1977."
We all look around at each other. Hurley turns back to Sawyer. "Uh... what?"
Sawyer takes a deep breath. "After ya'll left and Locke moved the Island, we moved too. He…well Faraday says it's like a record spinning off course. We started jumping through time. In the future and in the past. Charlotte died from it. And then, Locke moved it again to get back to all of you, but when he did, we stopped moving. And now we've been stuck in the 70s for three years."
"So you're telling me that you've been here, living with the DHARMA Initiative for the past three years?" Jack asks.
"That's right. How long's it been for you since the chopper?"
"Three years."
Jin's walkie goes off, Miles's voice coming through. "Hey, Jin, this is Miles. Where are you? Over."
"If I don't report in soon, they'll send out a patrol," Jin says. "What should we do with them?"
"Dude, your English is awesome," Hurley complements him.
"What we do is we bring 'em in," Sawyer says, answering Jin.
"Bring us in where?" Jack asks.
"Back to the Barracks at DHARMA-ville. You can't be wandering around in the jungle with the Hostiles."
"'The Hostiles'?" Kate asks.
"The Others," Sawyer clarifies.
"What about everyone else from the plane?" Hurley asks. "They could still be out there."
"What do you mean, everyone else?"
"We didn't come back alone," I tell Sawyer. "Sayid was on the plane, too. Lapidus." I turn over to Jin. "And Sun."
Immediately, Jin runs to Sawyer's jeep, starting it up. Sawyer tried to stop him. "Jin! Hold up! Where you going?"
"The Flame. If a plane landed on the Island, Radzinsky will know."
"Hold on! We gotta think about this!" But Jin ignores him and drives away. "All right. That's it. Listen, you guys gotta stay put. Don't go nowhere, don't do nothing till I can figure out how the hell to explain where you came from."
"Sawyer, wait," Kate calls. "Other than you and Jin, who else is still here?"
"You heard Miles on the radio. Juliet's back at the Barracks and Faraday's in Ann Arbor." Before we can ask anything else, he hops into the van and drives away.
We don't talk much. About an hour of waiting, Kate speaks up. "So the woman who told you how to come back. Did she mention that it would be thirty years ago?"
"No," Jack says, irritated. "No, she left that part out."
"So what are we supposed to do now?"
"I'm not sure yet."
I hear the engine of the van and Hurley yells "Sawyer's back!"
Sawyer turns off the engine and gets out, holding a shoulder bag and starts tossing Kate and I clothes. "All right, listen. Y'all are gonna be the second batch of recruits coming in off the sub pulling into port right about now, so we ain't got much time. Nice suit, doc. Not exactly Island wear. Try this."
I look at the clothes he gave me. It's a blue shirt with flower embroidery around the edges of the neck and wrists. The pants are dark bell bottom jeans.
Jack looks at his shirt. "You want us to say we came in on the sub. How's that gonna work?"
"Everyone gets knocked out before the trip, so no one meets each other until we process 'em."
"Look, we need to find the rest of the people from the plane," Jack says.
"If there was a plane, Jin will find it," Sawyer says, frantically. "So we got about ten minutes to make intake, or y'all are gonna be camping in the jungle for a long time. There ain't another batch of recruits due in for six months."
"What do you think?" Jack asks Kate.
"I think we should listen to Sawyer."
"I vote for not camping," Hurley says, pulling a sweatshirt with a bull dog on it over his head.
"Trust me. Do what I say. Everything will be fine," Sawyer says and Jack nods, agreeing to the plan. "Let's move."
We pile into the car and Hurley is asking questions immediately. "Okay, so it's 1977."
"Yep," Sawyer says.
"And you guys are all members of the DHARMA Initiative."
"Yep."
"Well, you do realize those dudes get wiped out, right? I saw where all the bodies got dumped."
"What about it?"
"Well, aren't you gonna warn 'em? Aren't you gonna stop it from happening?"
"I ain't here to play Nostradamus to these people. Besides, Faraday's got some interesting theories on what we can and can't do here."
"Did you say Faraday?" Jack says, leaning forward from the backseat. "I thought you said he was off the Island."
"He is. Haven't seen him in months." Sawyer pulls the van into the Barracks. A large sign spells out Welcome New Recruits and smells of charcoal grills wafts through the air. Music plays loudly from speakers. "Put these on and listen up," Sawyer says, handing us all necklace leis. "Juliet's got it worked out so your name's gonna be on the list, all right? So when you get in there, just watch the little meet and greet video, wait for 'em to call your name. When they do, just smile, step up, take your jumpsuits and work assignments."
"Work assignments?" Jack asks, outing on his lei.
"Yeah, don't worry. I got it covered. Just remember to act a little doped up, 'cause you just woke up from the sub."
Hurley starts to look nervous. "What if they start asking us questions we can't answer, like, uh, who's president in 1977?"
"It's not a damn game show, Hugo. Besides, I'm gonna be in there to get your backs, all right? Let's move."
"LaFleur!" a voice calls toward our group and Sawyer turns around reflexively. That's the name printed on his DHARMA jumpsuit. It must be his alias here. "Where have you been? I've been trying to reach you on the walkie." The voice belongs to Miles, who notices us standing in front of him. "What-what the hell are they doing here?"
"They're our new inductees," Sawyer says, putting his arm around Miles's shoulder and leading him away.
Jack points to the recruitment center building and we all walk inside. People are everywhere. There's my old friend Marvin Candle/Mark Whitman talking on the screens, welcoming his recruits to the Island.
"Tia Samuels," a male voice calls me and when I see it, I'm a little taken aback. Candle/Whitman is standing in front of me, holding a clipboard.
I walk up to him. "I'm Tia Samuels," I say.
He waves me over to a sort of cubical and motions for me to sit. "Of course it isn't here," he says, shuffling through a stack of papers.
"Where's what?"
"Your file. Could they be any more disorganized on the other side? Sorry," he says, standing up straight and composing himself, offering his hand, which I shake. "Namaste. I'm Pierre Chang. Welcome to the DHARMA Initiative. How was your ride in?"
"Um, it was fine"
"Good. Who was your shuttle driver?"
"Pardon?"
"The shuttle from the sub. Who was your driver?"
"Oh, that was, um... Mr. LaFleur."
"Ah, yes. Good man, LaFleur. Runs a very tight operation," Chang sets down his clipboard. I'm sorry for the disorganization. The woman who was supposed to be processing you in had a baby last night. I got pulled out of my lab. I... ah, here it is... your job assignment." He opens the folder then reaches behind himself, pulling out a tan jumpsuit." You've been assigned to security detail."
"Security? What does that mean?"
"Based on your aptitude test, you'll be working with our security staff, headed by Jim LaFleur. You'll probably handle the station, mostly. Monitor cameras, that sort of thing."
"Okay, sounds great."
"If you'll grab your papers and your uniform, your vaccination will take place over there with Lisa.
I follow Chang's finger to a woman whose hair is all Farrah Fawcett and she pinches me with an injector.
"So, you're the new security camera monitor?" a tall man with large eyes asks me as I put my jumpsuit on over my bell bottoms.
"Yeah, I'm—,"
"Tia. I read your nametag," he says, pointing to the breast of my jumpsuit. "I'm Phil. Let's get you outside for the new recruitments picture, then I'm afraid you'll have to skip the party. We've got a lot to teach you in a short amount of time. Along with the new recruits, we've had a bit of a situation."
"What kind of situation?"
"We'll explain after the picture. Just grab yourself some lunch and mingle. We'll grab you when we need you."
He leaves me in the courtyard of the Barracks. Hurley is fixing a hamburger, Kate stands to the side awkwardly, her jumpsuit a deep blue. I walk over to her. "Hey."
"Hi.'
"So where're you working?"
"The Motor Pool."
"With the cars? Do you know a lot about cars?"
She look at my jumpsuit my name Tia, freshly embroidered over the old Security tag, the DHARMA logo over it with a star in the middle. "Security?"
"Yeah, guess whoever set up our files was trying to be funny. Know who did it?"
"It was Juliet. Ran into her inside."
"Oh, how'd that go?"
"Fine."
The only time she's looked at me was to check my jumpsuit. Then she went right back to staring ahead. "Kate, I want things to be okay between us—,"
She turns to me, finally. "I want that too. But you hurt me Tia. Going behind my back with the whole Widmore thing. You know before I found Ben, I thought it was him trying to take Aaron away from me. It was awful, and I thought you were the one to blame, because you were making millions of dollars by this man's side."
"Kate, I'm sorry. I would never want Aaron to leave you and the hardest part about this is that I will never get the chance to be a part of his life. I drove him and Sun to the pier that night, and he didn't even recognize me. Not that I expected him too, but it still hurt. A lot."
"Come on over everyone! Let's get the picture taken!" One of the DHARMA women shouts, gathering us in the middle. She puts Kate in the middle and me off to the side with Hurley.
A man stands in front of us with a camera. "Okay, ready? Everybody say, 'Namaste!'"
"Namaste," I say with the group, trying to smile, but it probably looks like a grimace.
"Nama-what?" Hurley mutters, right before the camera snaps
The security guy, Phil calls out to the group. "Okay. Right on. So you guys have the rest of the day to get acquainted with your security protocol handbooks waiting in your new digs. Now some of it may seem a little scary, but I promise you all, we are perfectly safe here, okay? So make yourselves at home. Come on. We got hamburgers. We got punch.
Phil's walkie goes off, Sawyer's voice coming out of it. "You there, Phil? We're coming in with a 14-J."
"Roger that, Mr. LaFleur," he says into the walkie and pointing to me, motioning me over.
I walk up beside him and a DHARMA van pulls up, Sawyer at the wheel Phil turns back to the crowd. "Okay, if I could get everyone to hold back, please, we have a minor security situation."
Jin and Sawyer jump out of the van accompanied by a balding man with glasses. Lastly Sayid comes out of the van his hands cuffed together. The balding man prods him in the back. "Move." And they march him into a house labled Security.
Everyone goes back to their food and party. I turn to Phil. "What the hell was that?" I ask.
"That was a hostile. Welcome to your new job."