"I'm just going out to pick up some things from the grocery, I'll be back!" Desmond announced from the other room. It was the next morning.

"All right," Dare yelled back. She and Charlie were sitting at the kitchen island eating breakfast. Dare was filling in a Sudoku puzzle in the morning paper when her phone rang. "Hello?" she answered.

"Hey, it's me," Adonia said from the other end.

"Hello there."

"Are you busy?" Adonia asked.

"Nah. Des just stepped out. Charlie and I are eating breakfast. What's up?"

"Nothing. I was just bored. Wanted to talk, is all."

Dare smiled and tucked the phone between her ear and her shoulder. "You do realize that I was a professional secret discoverer, right? I know when a person's lying."

Adonia laughed humorlessly. "Yeah. Plus, I'm bad at it."

"So what do you really want?"

"I want to know why you're really going back to island," Adonia replied.

"What do you mean? I told you. If I can play a part in saving Sawyer, Juliet, Miles – everyone we left behind's lives, then I will."

"Yeah, and I believed that for a while," Adonia said. "But you know as well as I do that we could get that job done just as fast without you there."

"You don't want me to go?" Dare asked.

"No, I don't," Adonia replied bluntly. She sighed audibly. "You have a life, Dare. You have a family. You have something really genuine that you're leaving behind. You promised me you wouldn't lie – that you'd tell me the whole truth. So, why are you going back?"

Dare cleared her throat. She looked at Charlie who had begun busying himself with a coloring book. She left the room and took the stairs to the upper deck. It was sunny out and a beautiful day.

"LA is wonderful," Dare said into the phone.

"Are you avoiding the question?" Adonia asked.

"No. LA is wonderful and I would really enjoy living here but I can't, Addie. I can't because if I did, I might be killed. Or worse – my husband or my son could get hurt. Do you know what that's like? Having to run from someone you used to work for? Someone you used to trust? It's horrible. I'm not entirely sure what kind of a man Mr. Widmore is, but I do know he is not below hiring a trigger happy, ex-military killing machine to find a single person on an island, not caring who gets hurt on the way. And Keamy was just the beginning. There's hundreds of people like Keamy who could be hired in an instant. I won't rest, Addie, until I know that Charles Widmore is no longer looking for me. And I won't know that until I go to the island."

"How will you know that by going to the island?" Adonia asked.

"Someone told me. Someone came to me the other day. He said his name was Jacob. I think he was the Jacob, Addie. And he told me that if I went to the island, Charles Widmore would finally leave me and my family alone for good. So tell me, Adonia Sterling, why are you going to the island?"

"Sawyer," Adonia answered immediately.

Dare laughed. "You don't actually expect me to believe that?"

"No, I guess not," Adonia replied. "But, will you leave it be if I just tell you that I can't tell you? It's a little bit too much to talk about right now. I don't think I'm quite ready…"

"Fine," Dare said. "But you will tell me eventually, right?"

"Sure," Adonia agreed. "Eventually."

"I'd better go," Dare said. "We're going to sail around a bit this afternoon and I promised Des we'd be ready to sail by the time he got back."

"All right. I'll talk to you later."

"Bye."

Dare hung up the phone and put it in her back pocket. Ten minutes later, Desmond returned. Dare went below to check on Charlie, who was still coloring away.

"Daddy home?" Charlie asked, looking up at Dare.

"Yes, love. I'm going to help him take the groceries in and then we're going to go sailing, all right?"

Charlie nodded and continued coloring. Suddenly, a loud bang echoed from outside. Dare knew the sound of a gunshot by now, and it chilled her to the bone. She raced up the steps. "Desmond? Desmond? Des?"

She looked across and saw Desmond lying on the ground. "Oh my God," she whispered, clasping her hand over her mouth. Then, she saw Benjamin Linus. He was on the dock, holding a gun at her, though he looked rather confused to see her.

"You?" he asked.

"What did you do?" Dare yelled.

"It wasn't supposed to be you!" Ben shouted. He still held the gun straight at Dare, so she didn't risk going to Desmond.

"Mommy?" Dare looked over to see Charlie come onto the deck.

"Go back inside, Charlie. Go on, love," she said in the calmest voice she could muster. "Charlie, go inside." The little boy clambered back down the stairs.

"You have a son," Ben said, finally lowering the gun. Just as he finished his sentence, Desmond tackled him from behind and started beating him. Dare rushed onto the dock, but not before Desmond threw him into the water.

Desmond's arm was bleeding badly where he was shot and he looked pale. Dare threw her arm around the unconscious Ben's chest and dragged him back onto the pier.

"What are you doing?" Desmond asked as if she were crazy. "Did you see what he just did?"

"Yes."

"Then why are you saving him?"

Ben coughed and breathed heavily. Dare took her phone out and typed in 911. "Because he's my father." She pressed send.