Sink Or Swim
Chapter 37
Frank looked at the piece of paper with a compass bearing on it.
"What's that?" Sayid questioned.
"Cheat sheet Faraday drew for me," he responded.
"You don't know where your boat is?" Sayid questioned, giving Mac a glance.
"I know where it is," Frank answered, agitated, as the helicopter began flying into a thunderhead.
"Why are you flying directly into the thunderhead?" Sayid questioned.
"Why don't you just sit back and let me do my job, huh?" Frank asked.
"Hey easy Frank, we've got our lives in your hands. We just want to make sure everything's ok. Last time we were on a plane, it crashed," she pointed out.
"Point taken," Frank answered.
"Is that Penelope?" Sayid asked Desmond, who simply nodded. "She told Charlie she didn't know about this boat, correct?"
"Aye," he answered.
"What do you expect to find when you get there?" he questioned the other man.
"Answers," he responded as the helicopter experienced turbulence and lightning hit it.
"Damn it!" Frank exclaimed, as he struggled to keep the helicopter steady. "Hold on!" he told them. "We're almost through it. I see daylight!"
"Desmond!" Mac exclaimed as he tried to undo his seatbelt.
"What are you doing? Desmond! Are you alright?" Sayid yelled at him.
"Who are you? How do you know my name?" Desmond questioned.
Mac glanced at Sayid. "Hey, Desmond we're friends. Let me check your head, you might have hit it and became disoriented."
"How do you know my name?" Desmond asked again, trying to get away from them.
"We're at two thousand feet, sit down!" Sayid told Frank as he grabbed Desmond holding him down.
"What am I doing here?" Desmond screamed.
"What the hell's going on?" Frank questioned.
"Something's wrong with Desmond!" Sayid answered.
"There's no visual head injury," Mac quickly reported.
"How do you know my name?" Desmond asked again.
"Hold him there, Sayid!" Frank told the other man.
"I'm trying!" Sayid screamed back.
"Let go of me!" Desmond yelled.
"Keep him away from the stick! We'll be there in two minutes!" Frank yelled.
Mac held on to the seat as the helicopter veered down, and came close to the freighter. Sayid lets Desmond go, Desmond notices the photo clenched in his hand. The helicopter lands, as two guys run over, Sayid arms himself.
"What are you doing back?" one of the men asked.
"Who are they?" another man asked.
"Survivors of 815," Frank answered.
"You shouldn't have brought them here, what the hell were you thinking?" the first man asked.
"Alright, where am I?" Desmond asked.
"Desmond, Sayid and I are your friends, just take it easy ok?" Mac told him.
"Where am I?" Desmond repeated.
"Alright, just take it easy," the first man told him.
"My friend is disoriented!" Sayid yelled
"I'm not your friend! I don't know you! I don't know you!" Desmond yelled. Mac stood taking a breath.
"When did he start doing this?" a man asked.
"He was fine when we took off. When we hit some weather... Hey, Faraday told me as long as I stayed on the vector," Frank started to explain but was motioned to be quiet.
The two men took a step toward Desmond, but were blocked by Sayid and Mac.
"What's your name, my friends?" the man asked.
"Sayid," he answered.
"Mac," she replied.
"Okay, Sayid, Mac. Look, we're going to take your buddy down to the sick bay, okay?" the man explained.
"I'm going with you," Sayid answered.
"So am I," Mac answered.
"Let a doctor look at him first, and then you can come down. You got my word on that, okay?" the man answered.
Mac and Sayid share a glance before Sayid nodded and let them at Desmond.
Mac got out of the cab in front of the courthouse, sighing as she heard her cell ring. "Hello Sayid," she answered.
"I tried to call you at the house; Jordan said you had flown to Los Angeles to testify at Kate's trial," Sayid informed her.
"I left several messages for you in the past couple weeks. I thought perhaps you could use this time to spend with our son. He just started crawling, I thought perhaps you'd want to see that," Mac chided.
"I do, you know that I miss you and Maq deeply," Sayid answered. "You also know the reason I do it."
"You're working for Ben to keep us safe," she answered, shaking her head. "Sayid, I need you here to keep us safe. If anyone is after the Oceanic Six, don't you think they'll come after me, whether or not you're off doing whatever you are?" Mac reasoned.
Sayid took a breath. "You don't know what I've done."
"I don't care what you've done, Sayid. Whatever it is, we can deal with it. But this…you working for Ben, it's not working for me. I never thought I'd say this Sayid, but this is destroying our marriage. You know that don't you?" Mac questioned.
"Yes," he answered softly.
"Get on a plane, meet me in Los Angeles, tell Ben it's over," she pleaded.
Mac took a breath, drinking water, looking over the boat with Sayid. "Sayid," she told him as Frank approached.
"What's happening to Desmond? Your friends know what's wrong with him," Sayid told Frank.
"Well if they do, they're not sharing it with me," Frank insisted.
"Then perhaps you'll share how we took off at dusk and landed in the middle of the day," Sayid questioned.
"Listen, I don't know what's happening to your buddy, alright? But you gotta trust me when I tell you this, I am trying to help you," he insisted.
"You want to help us? Give me your phone. Let me call our people," Sayid pleaded.
"You give me that weapon and I'll give you this phone," Frank told him as they traded. "Be quick. And don't go trying to call Baghdad; those phones can only call each other," he warned, as Sayid dialed the phone Jack had.
"Hello?" Jack answered. Mac smiled hearing his voice.
"Jack, its Sayid. I'm on the freighter," he informed the other man.
"Are you okay? Is Mac ok? Where the hell have you been?" Jack demanded to know.
"Something happened during the flight, and now Desmond's in their sick bay," he informed them.
"I checked for head wounds, but nothing was visible," Mac reported.
"Hold on, hold on, hold on. Alright, you're on speaker," Jack told them.
"On the helicopter, something happened to Desmond. He doesn't appear to recognize me, Mac or know where he is," Sayid reported.
"Side-effects?" Mac heard Jack say to someone.
"Wait, your friend, Desmond, has he recently been exposed to high levels of radiation or electromagnetism?" Dan asked. When he didn't get a response he continued. "Okay, look. Uh, we don't know why, but going to and coming from the Island, some people can get a little...confused," he explained.
"So, what, is this amnesia?" Juliette asked.
"No, this is not amnesia," he answered.
"So what can we do?" Mac questioned.
"I need to talk to Desmond," Dan answered.
"He's in sickbay right now," Sayid reminded them.
"I can get you in there," Frank told them.
"Then what are we waiting for?" Mac questioned, following them., walking into sick bay with Sayid and Frank.
"What the hell, Frank? You're not supposed to be down here, and definitely not with them," the doctor told them.
"Sorry, doc, but I've got Faraday calling from the Island, and he needs to talk to him," Frank explained.
"No, Faraday's not talking to my patient, now get out of here," the doctor ordered.
"He's not your patient," Sayid informed the doctor slamming him to the wall.
"Hey!" the doctor exclaimed.
"Give Desmond the phone," Sayid repeated, as the doctor sounded an alarm. "Give him the phone now!" Sayid repeated, as he took the phone and Mac closed the door.
"Hello?" Desmond responded hesitantly.
"Desmond! Desmond, my name is Daniel Faraday . We met yesterday before you took off? But I'm guessing you don't remember that. Am I right?" Dan questioned.
"Took off? What?" Desmond answered, confused.
"Desmond, we don't have long to talk so I need you to tell me what year you think it is," Dan told him.
"What do you mean, what year do I think it — it's 1996!" Desmond exclaimed.
"Alright, Desmond, Desmond look, you gotta tell me... where are you?" Dan told him.
"Um...um...I'm in some kind of sick bay..." Desmond started to explain.
"No, no, no, no. Not right now, Desmond. Where are you supposed to be? Where are you in 1996?" Dan reiterated.
"Uh, Camp Millar, it's a... Royal Scots Regiment, it's just north of Glasgow," Desmond informed him.
"Should have known he was military," Mac told Sayid.
"Dan. You might wanna," Jack started to interrupt.
"No, no, no. I'm thinking, I'm thinking. Desmond, listen. When it happens again, Desmond, I need you to get on a train. Get on a train and go to Oxford. Oxford University. Queens College Physics Department. Alright?" Dan told him.
"What, why?" Desmond asked.
"Because I need you to find me," Dan informed him.