On board the Searcher
Annie and Desmond walked into the control room and Desmond went straight for the navigation system as if it were the only thing in the room. Behind him, Annie heard a thumping noise she couldn't identify until her eyes adjusted to the dark. Then she saw it was Sawyer, walking in a circle, kicking an unconscious Dori Goodspeed over and over again.
"Stop!" She grabbed at his arm, pushed him as hard as she could when that didn't work. "We need him alive."
Sawyer raised both hands as if giving up and walked away. Annie started to say more, but then she saw Elian lying on the floor at the back of the room, blood running down one side of her face from a gash over her eyebrow.
"Help me move her," Annie called out, trying to get Elian to the bench near the control panel. "Sawyer, will you help me?"
"Yeah," he muttered, swinging around and picking up Elian himself, carrying her over Dori and around two of the DI guards who clearly were beyond any help. He set her down and walked away.
"Are you okay?" Annie asked him as she checked Elian's eyes, her pulse. She vaguely noticed Max walk in, take the other seat at the control panel, heard the hum as the ship picked up power and speed.
"I'll get them out of here," Sawyer said, dragging one of the dead guards by the shoulders toward the door, and the stairs. "And find Penny. You're gonna need more help."
"Tell her to bring blankets, drinking water and table salt," Annie yelled after him, saw Doctor Scharff come in and start dragging Dori out of the room.
"He's alive, he might need me," she tried to stop him but Scharff pushed her back.
"I need to question him more than he needs you."
"Question an unconscious man?" Annie asked.
"Cause deep enough pain," Doctor Scharff said, "And you can wake anyone up."
Annie stared at him, didn't move until they were out of sight.
She wasn't sure how long after that Penny came in, it could have been two minutes or ten. She'd been focused on checking Elian, listening to Desmond on the phone with Richard, and between the hushed voices behind her, the rocking of the boat and the physical coming-down from the terror of a few minutes ago she'd started to feel herself falling into a trance.
Penny set the supplies she'd asked for near her left hand, and that's when Annie looked up and saw her, Sawyer behind her.
"Mathias is hurt," Penny said. "It's bad. He's downstairs, can you go to him?"
Annie got up, pointed to Elian.
"If she wakes up, get her to drink some salt water, she's in shock," She stopped near Sawyer on her way by, started to check him for injuries, her fingers running along his hair, his neck, until he felt it and flung them away.
"Go," he tried to walk away but Annie grabbed at one shoulder to turn him around. She stumbled, jolted back out of her wooziness when she realized the dark dampness running across the back of his maroon shirt was not sweat.
"What the hell, Sawyer?" she pulled him toward the floor. He tried to object, but found that gravity and his growing numbness were on her side. Annie pulled the medical kit over, dug around for scissors and cut the back of his shirt open in two seconds.
"The bullet is still in your back," she dug around again, poured peroxide over it and got a loud hiss and a string of f-bombs in return.
"Desmond," Annie yelled, "How far are we from the island?"
"Twelve hours," he said, "maybe a little less."
Annie said nothing but her eyes narrowed and Sawyer got her attention with his.
"Don't like the math?" He asked, pushed himself back to sit against the wall, shaking his head. "Me either. But this isn't the first time I've been here. Go help them first. Please."
Annie put one of the blankets behind his shoulder, and ran downstairs.
The Island
Weather Vane Station
Thirty minutes later
Hurley's group got back at the same time that his recruits pulled in with three more of the DI spies, but there wasn't time to celebrate. They could see on Richard's face that he had something huge to tell them, but he kept quiet until the prisoners had been shuttled off to Guam.
"How are they?" Hurley asked as Richard waved them all to the steps and outside.
"It's not good. A lot of injuries … worse."
Richard kept going fifty or more yards away from the hatch before he stopped.
"Your interrogator got a lot out of Goodspeed," He looked at Hurley and back to the hatch. "Like why they wired a bunch of the buildings: it's partly about cutting off communications, but the explosions will also be enough to push us off course – they'll change the formula."
Richard could see it wasn't adding up to his friends.
"The formula is the only way to find the island again when it moves," he said. "They were going to make it impossible for us to find out way back. And Doctor Scharff says the spies here were told if the Valenzetti fell out of touch, they should set it all off. So it could happen any minute now."
"Is the Weather Vane set to go off?" Kate asked, and saw a 'yes' in Richard's face. "Your parents, Claire…. we have to get them all back," she clearly wanted to bolt that way, but Hurley stopped her.
"Go get them, Richard," he said and Richard was off without another word.
"He'll get them home," Hurley said to Kate, seeing her face. "He'll get it done. Ben, get some of the recruits. We need everything they can get out of the supply room carried to the beach that's like a tenth of a mile down the hill from the barracks,"
Hurley started leading them that way as Ben called out for help on the two-way.
"Let Richard know where we'll be. We've lived on a beach before," Hurley said, "We can do it again."
On board The Searcher
Twenty minutes later
Annie had been on the main deck sitting quietly next to Mathias' body for a while when she felt Penny's hand on her shoulder, heard her crying softly.
"I'm so sorry," Annie said, "I tried, but we don't have what I needed to save him."
"Your friend from the ship was talking for a moment," Penny said softly. "Sawyer is out cold."
"Those are probably both good things," Annie said, "Come help me with them."
They walked back into the control room and found it almost silent now. Desmond and Max were watching the monitors, the programs with their directions to the island. They didn't look up as Annie went to Elian and then walked back to sit next to Sawyer.
Annie started pulling things from the medical kit, handed Penny towels to hold.
"You don't have any serious meds, do you?" She asked. "Antibiotics? Slightly more hardcore painkillers than Advil?"
"No," Penny said. "We planned for cuts and falls, not this."
Annie tipped Sawyer forward from the wall and Penny reached out to brace him as she worked.
"Are you going to take the bullet out?" Penny asked.
"No. The bleeding has stopped. I can wait until we get home. As long as we get there soon. Please, let us get there soon."
Penny was about to ask Desmond for an update when she heard Max shout a curse word she'd never heard out of a certified genius, saw Des letting his head slump into his hands over the control panel. They looked so exhausted and she tried to remember when they'd all slept last.
"What's happening?" she helped Annie set Sawyer back against the wall and went to them. "What is it?"
"We've lost them," Desmond said. "The island moved. It's gone, and I can't find it."
"Oh, no," Annie leaned against the wall, dropped to sitting next to Sawyer and looked from him to Elian, holding her forehead. "Oh no."
The Island
Beach camp near the former Dharma Barracks
Hurley, Miles, Ben and Kate were helping their team set up tents, dragging crates of food when the first blast hit it. Everyone stopped as they listened to explosion after explosion, some of them close enough to be felt, others a faint echo. They counted them silently, flinching a little with the small ones, jumping at the big ones.
Then the last one died out, and to Hurley's surprise and great pride everyone looked at each other for a few seconds and then went back to work.
"We should go to the Weather Vane," Ben was trying to get someone, anyone on his two way, even though they both knew the Flame was gone again. "See if they all made it back."
"Take three guys and a couple of stretchers," Hurley clapped him on the back as he walked toward Kate. "Be careful: There are still six DI out there and they hate us enough to blow up everything we own."
On board the Searcher
"Why can't you find it?" Penny asked, watching Desmond and Max scour the control panel, comparing notes. "We have the formula from the Lamp Post…"
"I know. It should be here," Desmond said, sounding mystified, reaching a hand back as if to ask for some patience. "It should be here somewhere."
Annie stood again, turned in a circle and froze, staring out behind the ship. Then she let go of a shriek so loud, so from her toes that it could have sent Penny into shock if she weren't simultaneously distracted by Desmond and Max cheering loudly, jumping out of their chairs.
Penny turned with them, and almost fell backward at the sight of the island about three miles in the distance. The familiar curves and twists of the landscape told them all they were a few minutes away from the Pala Ferry landing.
"How the hell?" Penny whispered.
"I don't know," Max said, "I don't care, let's get there before it moves again. The island saved us ten hours of getting home."
The Barracks Beach Camp
One hour later
With communications down, all that was left was to wait and see who would come home in one piece and who would not.
Hurley convinced Kate to stop putting together tents, to let Miles and the recruits take care of it while the two of them sat under a tree and downed bottles of water and watched the surf coming in and the sun creeping toward noon.
"They'll be okay," He said. "They'll all be okay," and Kate rolled her eyes.
"Hurley, you've said that five times. It's not all on you, you know? It's not."
"It feels like it is."
He'd barely gotten the words out of his mouth when moving figures far to their right drew their eyes that way. They saw David and Carmen first, then Walt behind them and Rose with her arm around a very confused-looking Claire.
Kate didn't make a sound, just stood and ran to them and Hurley saw her spin Walt around and around, heard him laughing. Then she walked to Claire as the rest of the camp circled around them all, clapping and smiling.
Hurley stood watching the celebration, waiting as the seconds ticked by and there was no sign of Richard and Ben. Then there they were, finally, Ben helping a disoriented, disheveled and shaken Richard along.
Hurley felt himself breathing again as he started that way.
"Someone stayed behind too long at the Weather Vane after he got them all home," Ben told Hurley. "He was determined to protect the core operating system."
"It still works," Richard yelled very, very loudly, and Hurley realized Richard couldn't hear a damned thing, his own voice included. "It's half blown-apart, but it works. I tested it again before we started back."
"Why don't you take him over there," Hurley said to Ben, turning to point to the spot behind them where the recruits had gotten a couple of campfires going.
He stopped cold, staring, his brain hardly sure it should accept what his eyes were saying to him as more familiar faces walked out from the brush at the other far end of their new camp. Then a wave of relief hit, tears stinging as another cheer erupted and people started running toward where Penny and Desmond were walking toward them, Charlie in Desmond's arms and Heinrick behind them.
"Thank you," Hurley said to nothing and everything, looking at the sky, the beach, and then his eyes caught a confused and scared looking Claire, Rose's arm still around her shoulder and another feeling washed over him: He wanted this so over, so done - so they could move on to what was next.
"Miles," Hurley called, waited for him to get nearer. "Take a few of the guys and go get the last six DI that are out there, okay? Give them a chance to surrender, but if they don't…"
"You got it, boss," Miles was gone before he could finish, and Hurley walked over to hear people starting to gently ask a very exhausted-looking Desmond and Penny some questions.
"They're at the Staff," he heard Des saying, "All three of our new doctors. We made sure she was okay, that she had what she needs to help them before we left. "
"The Staff is still standing?" Hurley asked and Penny nodded.
"She?" Ben had walked up behind Hurley.
"Annie," Desmond said, "Your girl saved our asses, Ben: Annie and Sawyer and the woman who defected – Elian. We wouldn't be here without them."
"Elian is Charlotte's sister," Ben said it almost under his breath, clearly sinking into a pool of relief to hear that Annie was on the island and tending to the wounded, "So you all know when you meet her."
There was a stunned little silence while that hit, and then Kate looked at Ben and then over toward the path to the Staff.
"Let's go see if they need any help, okay?"
He followed her, and Hurley led Penny and Desmond to the beach.
"Tell me what I can get you?"
"Somewhere to sleep," Penny said. "Food and somewhere to sleep."
"You got it," he said. "The rest of your lives, you tell me what you want and I'll make it happen, okay?"
"We want to not leave here," Desmond said. "We talked about it. I'm sorry, I know you want us to run the Searcher for you and we can discuss it later, but…"
"Done," Hurley said. "Nothing to discuss, man," he opened the front of the largest of the tents and waved them in. "Kick back, we'll bring you dinner. Welcome home."
"Thank you, Hurley," Penny said.
He saw them dropping down on the sleeping bags, Charlie between them, and he knew they'd be out beyond all waking before anyone got food to them. He sent it over anyway just in case, and then he started on his way to the Staff.