"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned
Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."

- William Congreve

. .

Do You Believe in Destiny?
Chapter 43, No Rage

. .

"Long time no see."

Sean parted his eyes slightly, but it hurt, awakening hurt. The light from the sun blinded him; the shadow of the man kneeling in front of him turned everything to blotches of darkness in his wronged vision. He felt like he was paralyzed from head to toe, but he could feel the pain in his legs, like they had been stretched out until they broke, and the ache in his back coming from laying on top of roots and stones.

"Is he ever g-going to get better?" a scared, worried woman's voice asked.

"Yes, but it will take months," a man's voice answered, an eerily familiar voice. But he couldn't place it.

"We don't have time for that!" the woman's voice yelled a little too loudly.

"Which is why you contacted me. Here."

He saw the bronze arm lift something white, and white was passed on to a pale shivering hand.

"You mean…" Hesitation, realization, "he must get started on drugs again?"

This was not a man of many words; Sean knew that, if only he could – if only he could open his eyes more. If only he could concentrate on whom the voice belonged to.

"You need to start giving him those. Yes, he will become addicted."

Silence.

"Thank you," the woman said in a shivering voice.

"He is still working for us. He still has work to do. Claret, I did not do this for you. This is for my employer."

"I understand."

"He needs to be taken back."

"What?"

This man didn't like to repeat what he had said.

"Then you need to return to us too. Linus is making a plan to attack the beach. You will have to be sure of which side you are on then."

If he concentrated really hard, he could see clearer. He parted his dry lips, tried to speak, just raspy breaths, they didn't even notice.

"Bye, José."

There was no answer. He felt Claret's hand touch his.

"Sean?" she whispered gently. He could hear the man's steps fade away. "Sean, you need to open your mouth."

He was trying. He really really was.

She made a frustrated noise and separated his lips herself. He could feel her drop water in his throat, followed by a pill. "You need to swallow, Sean, please, you need to swallow."

He swallowed. His throat burned. He felt like he was choking.

"And again, open your mouth again."

More water. More pills.

The world was just a little bit clearer and his head was on fire.

. .

"Why?" Kim yelled.

Andrea stood up so fast she hit her head in the low tree branch. She winced at the pain, eyes squinting at the sun, the sun made Kim look like she was almost glowing from where she was standing.

"You need to elaborate on that or you could get back to resting," Andrea said. As the pain faded away she creased her forehead in worry, but tried not to show it. Kim saw the struggle – and she wanted to hit her, throw sand in her face, because how did she dare to be worried about her?

Kim could barely speak, there were many words she could call Andrea in her own language, but they weren't even near enough. "Why did you throw one of your people out in the jungle? In the jungle where people get shot, where they get hurt…"

"And whose fault is that?" Andrea shouted, the crease gone as her eyes narrowed, and it wasn't because of the burning sun. "I don't have time or energy for this argument, Kimika –"

"Kimika?" Kim muttered. "Andrea, Fox is –"

Andrea shook her head and began to walk away, Kim followed her best she could, the pain was still there but not as much, she could ignore it. "He told us the truth! To get us all rescued. Even though he knew, I saw it, Andrea, in his eyes that he knew you were going to do this or even worse. And he told you all anyway –"

Andrea turned around, Kim stopped, they were standing very close, and Kim suddenly felt very small, even though Andrea was shorter.

Andrea glowered at her. "What in your small little pathetic mind makes you believe that I actually care? Do you think that Fox's little guilt tripped speech is going to change what he did? Can you even get it into your head what he did? Claire's shelter, almost killing a mother, hurting Kaylee. Kidnapping. All the things he could have told us but didn't. I do not care about Fox anymore. I do not care if you don't want to rest anymore. You're a grown woman, your choice to live or die. What I do care about right now is to get the hell off this island."

Andrea walked away, not bothering to even throw a last glance Kim's way.

. . . .

"Gosh, shut your whining," Esmeralda (real name unknown to Kim, but that wasn't unusual in this line of work) said. "Your glitter's all messed up. Why do you have to sweat so much?"

Kim frowned. She knew many words for a person like Esmeralda in Japanese, but Esmeralda would never understand them here, here in New York, instead she said, "I'm sorry that my natural cooling down process is a…" Inconvenience? "…problem to you."

"Honey, I don't think you understand half the words you're saying." Esmeralda blew her blonde fringe back to take a look at her work – her work that was Kim. "Gold, purple, not too many glitter-sweat chunks. Adequate enough to go."

Kim didn't answer her, waiting for the call. Adequate enough.

"And now gentlemen, our very own Asian beauty and star of the show… The stage is yours Amethyst!"

Lights flashed in blue and red. Silent sirens. The music pumped up as she came out on the stage, she wasn't the only one there. She grabbed her pole (Not so harsh, she remembered Esmeralda telling her). Nervousness, any hesitation she might have felt was gone and all she did was to do her thing. She slid seductively out of the red, oriental dress and stepped out. Cheering met her but she was blind to it. Just red and blue. Red and blue.

She remembered what her mother used to say about strippers. She stepped out of the skirt slowly. Someone shouted in appreciation. The thing she'd said weren't exactly nice. She would have a heart attack if she saw her now.

After that thought it became easier. She flashed more smiles, seductively dancing, removing pieces of clothing.

Yeah, easier.

. . . .

"Sawyer?" Allen turned around when he couldn't hear the steps behind him. Sawyer was sitting on the path behind him, an arm over his knee.

"Just resting," Sawyer mumbled, but he grimaced.

They had left their shelter by the cave, Maddy had not been pleased about that, sour and bitter she'd snapped at everyone around her, but Allen could understand her. It was not just that Maddy was too old and too young at the same time, childish and wise, but it was that they could have stayed there for much longer. Allen had proofed the cave and they had gathered things and it had begun to feel like a place they could stay for, at least for a while. Then the appearance of Sawyer and Flor ruined it all.

Allen thought of Flor with a twinge of hatred, but years of being a columnist had taught him to try to see it from her point of view too.

He looked at Maddy. She let go of Ellie's hand and took off her bag, it thumped down on the ground hard. She crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows pointedly.

Allen sighed and walked over to her, knowing exactly what she was thinking. Ellie played with some stones on the ground. "We can't leave him." He had agreed on the Flor part, but Sawyer, despite everything, had been something like a friend to him.

"I have not suggested we should," she whispered back. "I suggest he should go back to the beach – to his people."

"It's not safe there!" Allen said a little more loudly than he thought. His back was to Sawyer so he couldn't see what his reaction was, but Ellie suddenly stopped playing.

"It is not safe for us with him here," Maddy said, and Allen knew she was right. They couldn't go back, but Sawyer still could, just that Allen didn't have the time to show him the way back – and the question was if Sawyer could make it back at all. He said he was better, and his fever was lower, but he still had a fever.

(Allen also had flashes in his mind of people he'd known, Libby, Hurley, but he pushed those away.)

Maddy sighed and shouted to Sawyer still on the ground and trying to pretend like he was fine, "You can rest even longer. We're making camp for the night."

It was still the middle of the day.

. .

"Hi, Kim…" Kim dropped the two Kim fruits in the sand, and hurried to pick them up, but then she dropped the basket containing mangos and a bottle of water too. And in her distress to pick them up she knocked her head on the new diner table.

She stood up and met Libby's look with a smile, even though there were now two Libby's and her head was hurting. "Hi."

"What are you doing out of bed, sweetie?"

"We do not have beds," Kim said, and rearranged the now sandy fruits.

"You know what I mean," Libby said gently.

Kim swallowed and put the mangoes back in the basket. "I'm fine, Libby. Thank you for your… worry. But I am fine. It doesn't even hurt anymore," she lied.

"Kim, if you need to talk I'm here. Fox –"

"Libby!" Kim shouted, picking the basket up. "I really am fine. Please."

She walked around her, glancing back to see Libby watching her as she walked away, but then Libby's gaze averted to Hurley who came up beside her. They kissed and Libby smiled when she looked at him and there was nothing to compare the joy of the grin on Hurley's face.

Kim saw Kaylee walking by with a bucket full of water, but luckily she didn't stop to say anything to her, she saw Fred trying to speak with Wendy, but Wendy kept looking away from him over to where Zidler and Margo were making some sort of list, she saw Janna and Milou arguing quietly.

She snuck into the jungle, and when in there, hidden away from the survivors she sunk down on her knees, looking down at her shirt. She lifted it up, and saw that one of the wounds was bleeding again. She took a deep breath before standing up again, and continued on her way.

Kim didn't slow down until she was far away enough from the camp to walk out on the beach safely. There were footprints in the sand, all leading up and away from a formation of rocks, safe from the water, safe from the jungle.

"Hey!" she shouted.

She climbed up between two of the rocks, there was a small little refuge between the rocks. But there was no one there. She stared at the emptiness (small little stones, washed up seaweed, but for her it was the most empty place in the world), just stared until she jolted back, almost fell down the rock trying to get away from there.

He had been there. She had followed them. She had seen them led him away there. He was supposed to be there.

Kim didn't see herself as a very negative person – but the pain of her wounds was nothing compared to the pain in the place where her heart was a twisted knot.

She walked around the rock, and the waves went all the way over her knees, and they had washed away all traces of foot prints. But the pain was replaced by determination, and she walked along the waves and up the beach and closer to the trees until she saw one footprint, just one, and it was enough.

"Fox, you baka," she whispered to herself and went back into the jungle once again.

Without knowing she was being followed.

. .

"W-what the devil?" Dom shouted, eyes flying open and he startled, scrambling to sit up. He blinked and wiped away the water trickling into his eyes. He made quite a sight – water dripping from his hair, plastered against his forehead, clothes drenched.

Kaylee stood over him with an empty bucket that had just a moment ago contained said water.

"Not the devil. Worse," Kaylee said. "Now you listen to me, Dominic Austen or I'll get a club to hit you on the head with instead."

"You just threw water on me," Dom said between his teeth, still not quite believing it.

"It was the only way to wake you up," Kaylee snapped back, but there was a hint of worry in her eyes. "Now you tell me, Dominic Austen, what the hell have you been dreaming about?"

"You know you're overusing my whole name, right? And you sound like Kate when you do that."

"Dominic Austen –" threatened Kaylee.

"All right, all right," Dom said quickly. "Shut up and let me get some breakfast first."

"Club. Hitting. Your. Head."

Dom sighed, giving up. "Fine, all bloody – fine. I'll tell you. Can't I just… some fruit, at least?"

Kaylee crossed her arms.

Dom rolled his eyes, and in a monotone voice, told her everything.

. .

A hand turned the book around to look at its cover, whatever it was was uninteresting, and it was thrown away. The hand belonged to Desmond Hume, who was shuffling through a bag in the shadows of an abandoned shelter.

He put away two pens, a worn-out green shirt and something that looked like a mix between the Kim fruit and human eyeballs, before he found something that fascinated him. He stared at the cover of the ledger and opened it. It was written in a language he didn't understand, looked like Latin. He flipped through it and saw that a few pages had been ripped out. He turned a few pages back, and realized that the language had changed, it wasn't Latin anymore. It sure looked like it. But somebody who had read books on code in the Hatch for years it was easy to see that this was something utterly different.

"Des?"

He turned his head and saw Pe – no, Andrea, not Penny, stand there with a frown on her face.

"I was just looking through Fox's… his things; see if I could find something useful."

"And did you?" Andrea asked.

Desmond hid the ledger under his blue shirt before he stood up and shook his head. "Nay, nothing of importance."

Her arms fell to her side. "I'll get Lori. Meet me by the trees in a minute, okay?"

"We need Fox back." Andrea sighed later when they had gathered, head resting against the tree. She looked resigned, her words almost sounding small in Lori and Desmond's ears. She swallowed before going on. "I know I was the one to throw him out of here, a moment of fury, and I still wouldn't object to see his head on a plate, but we need him."

Lori scowled. "I will beat up that little –"

"What my little sis is trying to say," Desmond interrupted quickly, "is that Fox isn't in anyone's good graces. But, aye, we do understand."

"Well, you two might have forgotten," Lori said, "but as Andrea just said, we threw him out. He's gone. Poof! We have no idea where he is."

"Kim does," Andrea whispered.

Desmond stared at her, Lori gaped for a moment similar to a fish, before stuttering out, "W-what?"

Andrea chuckled, but her eyes were sad. "You know her. You really think I didn't see her follow us when we led him to those cliffs? And then all those trips to 'get water' and 'collect fruit'."

"Ah," Desmond said at the revelation, and then, "Why do you not just get him?"

"Because I can't," Andrea said sternly.

"Why?" Desmond asked.

"Because we would lead him right back to the wolves," Lori said, "like me. Which reminds me, why can't I beat him up? Just a little? Remember when Sayid tortured Claret?"

Desmond and Andrea stared at her.

"Oh, right. You guys weren't here. See Sayid –"

"Not important." Andrea turned to Desmond. "Either I talk you Kim, or you do. In the moment Kim believes me to be as bad as she should see Fox, so I suggest you do it."

"Do I have much of a choice?"

"Don't you want to get rescued?"

Desmond sighed too, in a very resigned way like Andrea.

. .

"Where are we going?" Claire asked them. Her face was dirty and her hands were clammy and she felt with every step they took like she was going to collapse, but if there was anything she had learned, was that she was a lot stronger than she thought.

"Owen told us something," Jack explained. They hadn't exchanged many words on their journey through the night, away from the Others, away from being trapped, even though for Claire she still felt trapped, knowing Brian was behind there and the threat of blowing his brains out.

Mostly her and Jack's attempts at conversation was interrupted by Juliet if they tried, but now Juliet was silent, letting Jack tell Claire. "We have to pick something up before we go back."

"And what is it that we have to pick up?" Claire wondered, a frown appearing on her face.

Juliet and Jack shared a look.

"You know what?" Juliet said. "You guys need to get to the camp. I'll get the thing and — you'll go and..." She shared another look with him. "You know what to do."

Jack nodded, and he took Claire's arm to lead her away from Juliet who disappeared into the jungle, without them.

. .

Flor had just gone away for a moment into the trees. Only a moment away from Lalita and the guilt that ate her up inside, making her feel like she wanted to find the nearest cliff and throw herself off it.

It had been just a moment.

When she came back she saw Lalita fallen on the ground.

She didn't think. She just ran.

"Lalita!" she shouted, kneeling beside her. She was passed out. "Lalita?"

She heard the safety of a gun being released. She froze for a second. She then turned her head slowly and faced a man with tanned skin and mischievous eyes. "Who…?"

"Jim. Jim Al. You might recognize me. I sure recognize a pretty face like yours, Florence Bluth." The man grinned, white teeth, striking eyes.

Flor stood up but Jim raised his gun and she stood back, hands slightly raised, but not in defeat.

"You going to shoot me?"

"I'm thinking about it."

"You should. That's your duty, isn't it? That's what you all want. Me, dead. I suppose you, the Others, would be very happy if you came back with my head on a stick. Maybe they would forgive you for whatever you did."

"Why would I need forgiveness?"

"You're running just like I am," Flor said quickly, hoping she was right. "Why else would you be here? And you haven't pulled the trigger yet. Not that it would do much good."

"Is that so?" Jim said.

He fired the gun.

Flor blinked, smiled and pointed the knife she's taken from Lalah on the ground to his throat. "It's empty of bullets, genius."

"I knew that." Jim dropped the gun, and now he was the one raising his hands. "It was just a show. Mind lowering that knife? You could accidentally stick my eyes out."

"I don't want you to hurt that woman anymore," Flor said, nodding at Lalita lying on the ground, looking like she could almost be asleep with her eyes closed and her hair falling over her face. "And I want you to give me your own knife. I might need it."

"To kill more?" Jim asked, thinking of Diane bleeding out on the ground, thinking of those whispers about a new leader – a leader whose life was shortened brutally by the woman in front of him.

"To protect myself from the likes of you," Flor snapped. "Give me the knife, okay? I'll let you go."

"You will let me go?" Jim asked, almost laughing at the ridiculousness, but he still picked up his knife from his boot, slowly, carefully under the watch of the other blade.

Then he snatched Flor's knife right out of her hand before she had the chance to blink.

"Now I have two knives and you got zero. So I would think you need to be a little bit nicer to me," said Jim. Flor was still blinking, looking surprised at her own empty hand, like she couldn't believe the simple trick he'd done.

"Just let us go," Flor begged quietly.

Jim shook his head, pitying her, "I can't do that."

"Okay," Flor swallowed, "why?"

"Um… I thought it was kind of obvious."

They stared at each other. Jim frowned slightly, looking at her up and down like he had never really seen her before, as he recognized her as something else than a mindless killer.

"Do you know someone called Frederic… Fred, Fred Phelps?" Flor asked him in a tiny voice, a voice that was completely gone of all the harshness from what she'd said earlier, this sounded true.

Jim shook his head, though he had heard of the name he didn't think it belonged to the person she was asking for.

"That's good," Flor just said and waited for the inevitable blow.

That never came.

Jim suddenly looked around, lowering his arms and the knives a little. He looked scared as he turned around to look at the treetops. "That can't be good…"

Flor didn't say anything, just waited for her chance, to run, to get the weapons back, but all her plans were turned to dust when she heard a horrible sound, clashing, something ticking.

Jim glanced at her. "Nice to meet you," he said before he jumped over Lalita and dashed off into the opposite thickness of the jungle.

Flor bent down beside Lalita, shaking her hard. "Wake up, wake up, wake up," she begged while throwing worried glances into the trees. Lalita's eyes opened slightly, just as a tree in the distance was thrown up from its roots.

Lalita opened her eyes completely, dark and furious and Flor didn't think before she struggled away from the woman, knowing she couldn't stay. She heard the sound of another tree falling and ran the same way Jim had, away from the monster hunting them.

. .

Fox hadn't gone very far. Of course he hadn't gone very far with the monsters that lurked behind every tree and the memories that were more terrifying than the prospect of meeting Ben again.

He had carefully avoided another trap – one of that French woman he kept hearing about, he supposed – and was having trouble deciding between staying, leaving, staying, leaving, for there was a little part, and did he hate that part, that wished that somehow they would find him again. The survivors (his friends?) that they would forgive him, impossible, but weren't dreams always impossible?

He sat down on a stone, moist from morning rain and his stomach growled with hunger. He remembered Room 23, and the dullness in his brain after being there, like all his emotions, all his thought and hopes had been wrung out of him like a wet cloth. He had always been sacred of feeling like that again, but this was worse, this feeling everything.

He heard something snap, rustle, and he turned around, to his feet, his feet that were too uncoordinated and he almost tripped and fell but he collected himself in the last second. When he saw who it was, he almost fell down just because of that. She followed him, she'd forgiven him, no she was here to kill him. All of that was possible.

"Y-you…" Fox stuttered, swallowing down the rest of the words, Kim stared at him. It felt, in just a moment, like he was back at the camp and that he was supposed to now tell her to lie down, rest, you're hurt, yes, I'll stay by your side.

"I used to be a stripper."

Fox blinked.

He hadn't known what he had been expecting when Kim now stood there, face dirty, basket in hand, but those words had completely taken him off guard.

"I haven't told anyone here though I think Sawyer knows. He called me Amethyst. Now you tell me everything. Or I'm going to leave and you're never going to see me again."

"I-I…" Fox didn't know where to start. What did she want to know? She kept staring at him, and he felt like she was scanning him, piercing into his mind and what she saw she didn't like at all. Fox could understand, he didn't like himself that much either.

"I d-didn't mean to do it," he blurted out. "Claire – she w-was my friend. From the beginning. Even during…" He swallowed. "Ethan had visited me, I thought I had been… not safe, but… I was shocked. I hadn't… I c-c-couldn't… I was out of everything. I couldn't concentrate. Everything hurt. He threatened to snap someone's neck. He said I had to mess up or he was g-going to. And I wasn't going to. I wasn't. Next thing I know the small light I put up in Claire's shelter… it's… It was a mistake.

"Everything about coming here was a mistake. I just didn't know w-what else I was supposed to do. I was so t-terrified all the time. Terrified of Ben. Terrified of the island. Terrified of you. But then… I came to feel, like, like I belonged with you, somehow. And I kept thinking it was t-too late you tell you, too late for everything, and that I didn't need to… but I did. I didn't sign up for taking away Claire, but you don't know what they can do, what Ben can do. I was terrified, like a-always."

He blinked again.

"I understand," Kim said, she looked like she was wavering. "People are always gonna judge you."

Fox felt like he had jumped off a cliff only to find a mattress at the bottom. "Are you comparing being a stripper to being an Other?"

"No," Kim said. "I haven't killed and kidnapped."

Fox's hand shook. He didn't deny anything.

"But what I know – what I have learned from everything I have been through. Is that there is always another point of view."

"I wouldn't know," Fox said.

"You stutter a lot less all of the sudden."

They stared at each other.

"I – I know," Fox stuttered.

. . . .

"How's the college life going for you Kimmy?"

"It's…" Kim tried to find the right word, but there wasn't really any, "…okay," she said into the phone.

"Uh-oh, that bad?"

"No. It's… it's really okay Angela." She stepped over a pile of books on the grimy vinyl floor.

"Hmm. Your tone says different. Is it the money? I thought you got a job right?"

Kim looked into the mirror with cracks on the sides. The glitter had clumped around her eyes. She had yet to take a shower. She shuddered at the thought of the cold water.

"Yeah, yeah money's no problem," she lied. "So are you and Jared still all over each other?" Kim said, trying to change the subject.

"We broke up."

"You did what?" Kim yelled. If there was any high school sweethearts she would have bet would make it, it was Jared and Angela. They had been so obvious she hadn't even thought any different when she had first come to America, assuming that was how it was, instead of assuming the right thing which was that they were so far in denial land.

In the end they had finally fled denial land and realized what everyone had accepted as a fact years ago.

"Just joking, chill Kimmy. By the way, baby, it's cold outside! Let us in!"

"Let you in… You're in Los Angeles aren't you?"

Kim's rising suspicion was only confirmed when the doorbell rang. She stumbled over the pile of papers and pulled the rickety door open.

"Kimmy!" Angela cried out and pulled her into a perfume-filled hug.

Kim should've known. Angela loved clichés. She turned off the phone and happily hugged her friend back. Over her shoulder she saw Jared stand in the doorway, looking like he didn't know what to do as always.

There was a lot of yelling and jumping around after that. And Kim didn't even get angry when Angela lit a cigarette in her one room apartment, just opened the window and threw it out and returned with a smile.

"Don't you think that's going to cause a fire?" Jared said after awhile.

After they put the small fire that had started on the ground, Kim's happiness faded, she was overjoyed to have her friends with her. One of the hard things of New York was being away from everyone she knew. But it was the question she feared that made her smile disappear.

"So where do you work?" Angela had asked, after realizing she and her boyfriend had to stay in a motel or something because Kim's apartment was just that small.

Kim gulped.

. . . .

"There's two of you," Sean said to Claret, wincing and squinting.

"Close your eyes," she said gently, he didn't, so she came and pressed two fingers down and his eyes were now closed. "You need to rest. Here, take this."

"You're feeding me drugs," Sean mumbled. His eyes flew open, he swung out with his arm but he didn't hit Claret, just tried to push her away. "No."

"You don't understand, Sean," Claret pleaded. "You need this. To get your body working, so we can go back and warn everyone. You want to see them again, don't you? Sean. Please. Oh, Sean. Why are you not getting better?"

"B-better…"

"José said you would get better."

A memory. Files. Money changing hands from wrong people to the right people. It flickered and it died. "No," he protested. "No, no, no, no, no."

. .

They were still there in that little clearing in the jungle, Kim and Fox, together.

Kim was speaking fast, hurried, like she was afraid she would never say the words if she didn't say them now. "I – I'm not going to forget that you lied. Andy might think so – she – she hates me for thinking that. She doesn't know that I… I just don't think we should put punishment on you. We have all done things, but, Fox, it doesn't change that you did lie, and who knows what else you have done. When I look at you know," she did, and she swallowed, "it does not feel the same."

The basket was forgotten, they were half-laying, half on the ground and half on the stone and they weren't touching, but it almost felt like they were, like the space between them was filled with something big and important that couldn't falter but at the next moment it felt like something would crumble if they moved apart or any closer at all.

"Why d-does it feel like we're missing something great?" Fox asked after the silence.

"Maybe because it didn't even start."

Fox turned his head to look at her – she was gazing up a the branches. "I c-can't go back."

"Who says that?" Kim said fiercely, knowing very well who said that. She sat up and whatever that had been between them that moment broke. "Who – what are we going to do? Just leave you here? Go and – and – we can't do that. They can't do that. We can't."

"When a-are you leaving?" Fox asked.

Kim shook her head. "I – I do not know. Andy's… she's not telling. We don't know. Fox, I think they need you."

"No, no you – they, I m-mean, they don't."

Silence, again, awkward and too much for the both of them to bear.

"You'll stay there… right, at those rocks?" Kim asked without looking at him.

"Y-yes."

"I'll come back tomorrow, if we… if we…" Kim didn't finish the sentence, she didn't have to, Fox understood.

. . . .

Her heels clicked against the pavement of the road. She'd escaped the evil, stubborn clutches of what was Angela and Jared's endless catching up with the excuse of an extra shift down at the store she was working on. ("In the middle of the night?" Angela had asked, crinkling her nose. "It's New York," Kim had said with a shrug.)

Kim knew what was going to happen if she told Angela the truth of what she did to pay for a living. She would judge her, lips thinning and eyes darkening and that I-am-so-much-better-than-you look would kick in and Jared, Jared of course would be insufferable. And then they would suggest she talked with her siblings – or forced money upon her and Kim couldn't have that. She refused to have it like that.

And then they would ask if it was about him. Like Kim had taken the job as a stripper from grieving over him.

She was so lost in her thoughts that she accidentally knocked into a man. He'd been standing just in the shadows next to the light of a lamppost before she'd pushed him hard.

"I'm so sorry!" Kim shouted, startled. She bent down to the ground to pick up the pack of cigarettes he'd dropped on the ground. "Here, so so sorry." She smiled apologetically. "I didn't mean to, I wasn't looking –"

"That much's clear, love," the man said, but she could now see him in the light and he was smiling a little. His eyes were gray, even in the yellow light. "Although…" He picked out a cigarette that was drenched from the puddle, holding it in his glove-clad hand.

"I would offer to buy you a new one, but I'm really late, I'm so sorry," she repeated, putting her hand on his arm.

He looked quite amused by the situation, soaked cigarette in hand almost being pushed to the ground aside. "You from around here?"

"As much as you." She recognized his accent, but she couldn't place it. It sounded like a British one, but with something else too…

"Figured as much, folk around here don't say sorry so much. They're often more likely to take my cigarettes and run off."

Kim laughed politely, but she really was late. "Sorry again," she said. "I have to now… uh, goodbye."

"Goodbye, Kimika," the man said.

Kim frowned, but smiled a little still. She wrapped the coat tighter around her and asked, "Who are you?" Did she know him? He didn't look very familiar to her, blonde hair and accent all unknown.

"Name's Simon."

Despite being late, she was curious. "Simon who?"

"Simon… Just Simon Bailey," he said with a smile on his face too.

"Well, Just Simon Bailey, I have to get to work," she said, turning around to walk down the street once again.

"Ah, yes, your job." There was something in the tone of his voice that made her stop and look back again.

"I'll be there in the crowd, watching." Simon waved, shortly, before he left in the opposite direction, disappearing into the shadows.

Kim was left gaping after him, before she remembered she was late, and she half-jogged with difficulty on her heels away from the lamppost and the strange encounter.

. . . .

"There is no removing sand tracks," Desmond said breathlessly to Andrea and Lori, sounding like he had been running.

"You found him?" Lori asked.

Desmond nodded.

"Show me where so I can punch the living daylights –"

"Lori," Andrea interrupted her, it was hard to do so, because she would really like to see Lori beat Fox, but Andrea prioritized getting them off the island first, even if it meant admitting she had been… well, not wrong, but foolish to just cast him out immediately.

She sighed and turned to Desmond. "There will be no punching, but you have to show us where. We can't waste any time preparing or anything. We need to talk to him now."

Desmond nodded, and the two of them and Lori (muttering behind them all the things she'd liked to do to the "stuttering bastard") set off.

. .

She sat down by the river, drinking from the water, before wiping at her mouth. She put her knees to her chest, hugging herself. Jim was sitting on the opposite side of the river on a rock, watching her. Flor kept her distance and Jim kept his.

He supposed they were both a little shaken up after seeing trees getting pulled out from their roots by something (Jim knew what he had seen he could just barely believe it.)

"So, why is a pretty girl like you here out all alone?" Jim asked to break the silence.

Flor stared at him, her gray-blue eyes dead serious. "You just confessed to wanting me dead and now you're hitting on me?"

Jim shrugged but didn't look sheepish at all. "T-tu as des… yeux magnifiques! It's French," he explained at her confused look. "It means you have beautiful eyes or something."

"You know who I am, right?" Flor asked him.

Jim grimaced. "Yes, unfortunately, instead of seeing this appealing gorgeous woman in a very thin and ripped dress in front of me all I keep thinking is 'murderer! Murderer! Run for your life!'"

Flor rolled her eyes. "Not kill the murderer before she kills you?"

"Nah," Jim shook his head, "I know the power of mothers," he said, thinking of his own. "And I have this need to satisfy my curiosity – amongst other needs of course – did you and hot-stuff-if-he-wasn't-such-an-ass get Eva outta there?"

"Why should I tell you?" Flor asked suspiciously.

"I take that as a yes then. Did you kill many doing it? I think it's fair if you answer that question."

Flor snorted. "Fair? You're talking to me about fair?"

"Yes I am. Considering one of your people tried to kill me, you know. Kimika Yamazaki. Cute girl. I would've tipped her for a lap dance if she hadn't put a bullet in me. And then there's the whole fact that I didn't go after you after you hurt one of my closest friends, Lalah. Know her?"

"We killed no one," Flor said, not meeting his eye, not making any comment to the information revealed. "We are not like you. We just wanted to save her. Save Eva. And we did." She made a sad smile. "Ha, we did."

"Save her?"

"Yes," Flor now met his eyes, "we did."

"You know what rumors were flying around here when I first came to this place? It were rumors of our new leader. Not Owen Chauncey, not John Locke, of someone else. The way some people spoke of it – like they were talking of a new Messiah. Wanna play guess the character?"

Flor leaned back, looking a little bitter, but her eyes were soft. "Rosalie," she said the name like it hurt. "Are you going to try to kill me or something?" she asked him.

"That would take time and way too much effort," Jim said.

"Where will you go?"

"Back, I suppose, to the people you call Others. Unless you've seen a pretty brunette girl around with a habit for never using contractions called Maddy."

Flor hesitated. "I'm all alone," she breathed out. "You should go back, if you can, I can't. So there is no point for you to storm the camp after me. I'll be out here, hiding."

"And it's not like I could cross that river anyway," Jim said a bit too quickly.

"No," Flor said, even though it was obvious he could.

They were just about to part ways when Jim spoke again. "You sure you haven't seen her, Maddy? Your eyes, recognition, y'know."

"I haven't," Flor said again, but her voice shivered.

"Look," Jim said, "I just fled from the people I've been living with for years, all for this girl. I helped Wendy Reyes escape with Karl. I even let this crazy chick Janna out risking my own neck for it. I didn't go and warn my people when you and Sawyer began your search and rescue mission. I knew that gun was without bullets when I pointed it at you. I don't care about them, right, Ben's people. I care about her. All I want is to find her and help her. Can you believe that?"

Flor looked sad, she shook her head but when she saw his eyes something changed. "I have," she said, sounding like she regretted it but she couldn't take it back, "I have seen her, but I have no idea where she is now. This jungle is like a maze. She's not alone… You should know that."

"I only knocked Lalita out because she tried to kill me," Jim explained. "Self-defense. I like to stay alive. Too pretty to die young and all that."

"I really don't know where they are and I won't tell you, but I can tell you she's alive," Flor said, and she was preparing herself to leave again but Jim spoke once again like always.

"James Ford," Jim said, "he all right?"

Flor looked surprised, her lips shivering like she wanted to speak or cry.

"We struck a deal. I helped him out with this assassin chick called Lalah – is you see her, run, just saying – and he would let me go so I could look for Maddy. Did he… do you know…"

"You're the fanboy." Flor smiled to herself.

"The what?"

"He just, he called you that when we mentioned…" One of those rare times they actually talked about what had happened. She took a deep breath. "Last time, they were by this mountain, cave, but they have left. It was north. I am already regretting telling you this. I just lied, it was actually south. And it wasn't a cave. It was a waterfall. And I didn't see them. Ignore… everything…" She sighed. "Too late, isn't it?"

"Thanks!" he shouted after her, and she stopped in her tracks again. "Thanks… for telling me that. You're not too bad, for a girl everyone wants dead. Hanging out with the chick whose wife you murdered. You got guts."

"Thanks, for being obnoxious and once again telling me you want to kill me."

Jim winked. "Fine line between love and hate, sweetheart. I'm excellent at crossing it."

And they left in two opposite directions.

Jim knowing exactly where to go.

Flor having no idea at all.

. .

"Kim."

Kim stared, Andrea stared right back, Desmond stared, and Lori was not looking at any of them but if she could she would have been staring too.

"What are you doing here?" Both Andrea and Kim asked each other at the same time, trees surrounding the both of them, beach just in sight.

Kim cleared her throat. "Talking a walk." And the look she gave Andrea – daring her to say anything about it, to object.

"Oh really?" Andrea raised her eyebrows, crossed her arms.

"Really," Kim answered.

"Come on!" Lori shouted, startling them all. "Kim, we know you've been visiting Fox. Andrea, we all know of your feelings for Ki –"

"What?" Kim shouted before Lori could finish. Andrea looked flustered. "No, I don't know where he is. No. Not at all. I have no idea what you are talking about. Goodbye."

Desmond grabbed her arm before she could get away. "Kim," he said seriously. "We're not here to persecute the fella; we're here because we need him. And I'm here to make sure Lori and Andrea don't go and do anything too drastic."

"You need him?" Kim looked at Andrea.

Andrea looked down at the ground.

"I knew it!" Kim shouted triumphantly. "This is what you get –"

"You can start gloating when we've all gotten off this rock," Lori interrupted her. "Des thinks he's at some formation of rocks, true or not true?"

"True," Kim said, "uh, if you're really sure you need his help…"

"We are," Lori said, and muttering, to herself and just loudly enough that her brother would hear, "and so I can kick his ass."

As they all walked away, led by Desmond and Kim, Janna who had been following her made her way back to the camp, filled with the information she had heard.

. . . .

Kim's boss didn't even yell at her, didn't have the time, just a reminder they could get someone just by snapping their fingers in her place instead. "So you better drag your ass down here in time."

It didn't go better that one of the guys watching was taking it all a little too far for a strip club, and that she felt like her bones were turning to mush, like she wouldn't be able to make it another step. And that guy just kept continuing, kept yelling racist slurs and touching too much and she wanted to scream.

"Back off, mate."

He came out of the shadows, out of nowhere, gray eyes, black gloves.

Kim stopped, there on the stage, she just stared while the music continued booming through her ears and people around her kept moving, but she was only staring.

"What is that word for someone who follows you around without you knowing them?" she asked him later, when she had finished working and was wearing the coat tight around her again.

"I think it might be stalker, but here's the thing, dear Kimika; I do know you," Simon said walking beside her through the streets, under the lights, it would soon be morning.

"How?" Kim asked.

"That," Simon said, lightning a cigarette, "is a very long and unbelievably amazing story and ends up with you deciding to trust a complete stranger because you're just that nice and gullible of a person."

"Simon Bailey," Kim said very seriously, "the only reason I'm letting you walk beside me now is because in my purse there is a gun."

"That's more like it," Simon said, as they walked together into the fast food place that was open all night.

. . . .

Desmond stopped, looking over to the jungle, the waves rolled in over the sand, close to his feet but he didn't notice. His eyes were narrow as his search gazed for something – he looked away, began to walk again, when he heard a shout.

It was of course Lori trying to attack Fox, missed and instead hit Andrea, all while Kim took Fox to a safe distance and explained.

Desmond looked again at the trees, this was the feeling he had gotten when they had first come down into his hatch, that first feeling, not the panic, not the exhilaration that somebody else could take over his work. It was the sense of foreboding.

He walked over to them and interrupted Andrea's speech consisting of many "we are not forgiving you", "we are just using you", "do not have any ideas" and turned her to look at the jungle.

"How far out did we put the traps?"

"Not this far," Andrea said.

"And there is nothing protecting us from the beach way or the water?"

"Of course not," she said. "That wouldn't be possible. Des, what's going on?"

Desmond pointed at the trees where Claire and Jack stepped out from.

. .

"Kay?"

Kaylee closed her eyes, before opening them and turning around to look at Kate.

"Hi, Kate," she said, swinging off the bag containing the water, she began to put the water bottles up on the new shelves Bernard had constructed.

"You all –"

Kaylee gave Kate a look that clearly said she would punch her if she asked if she was all right. Kate closed her mouth, and for a moment, she just helped Kaylee with her work.

Until, of course, Katherine Austen had to talk. "Have you seen Dom around?"

Kaylee knocked over the shelf and everything in it fell down. She swore, but didn't bother picking anything up, already seeing Rose rushing to their aid.

"No," Kaylee replied shortly. She put the last water bottle in Kate's arms. "I haven't."

Tears burned hot in her eyes but didn't fall, and tied to block out Rose's worried questions about her to Kate as she walked away.

She saw Milou approaching her and tried to steer away, but Kaylee knew Milou had military training, and cornering someone was not difficult for her.

"Have you seen Andrea?" she asked.

"No."

"We have to speak," Milou said, clearly annoyed.

"About rescue?" Kaylee scoffed. "Like that's going to happen."

Milou narrowed her eyes. "Not if Andrea isn't with us," she said.

. .

This was not how it was supposed to go, thought Lori, hand shivering from not being touched and other hand shivering from holding back a punch.

"We have a lot to discuss," Jack said and Andrea agreed. Lori could hear by her voice she had noticed the change in Jack too.

Jack and Claire hadn't exactly run into their arms, crying with relief of coming back to the beach, they had been standing there, staring at them, not as if they wanted to savor the moment, but as if they were calculating them.

Lori had not seen it: but she had felt it. She had felt Jack avoiding her, Claire keeping her distance.

Lori followed them back to the camp, but not with them.

The sun was low in the sky.

. .

"Sawyer."

"Sow-ya."

"Sa…"

"Sooooo…"

"You are hopeless," Sawyer said and gave up on ever teaching Ellie to say his name properly. He leaned back against the tree.

Ellie made big eyes, sitting cross-legged in front of him on the ground. "Daddy says hope is most important of all, after hiding and weapon…y, he says so."

"You know what, Goldilocks?" Sawyer leaned in and Ellie leaned in too, like they were sharing some big secret, the little fire they'd made (despite Allen and Maddy saying they couldn't) lit up half of her face. "There is a good chance your daddy is one electron short of an outer shell."

Ellie frowned. "You are ill," she said and uncrossed her legs, fidgeting like a child sitting still for too long, "you got an owie."

"Indeed I do." Sawyer smirked, and Ellie frowned deeper.

"You are… craaazyyy."

"Might be." Sawyer shrugged.

Ellie looked a bit scared, but Sawyer knew the little thing would idolize him till the end of time.

"When's daddy and Maddy coming back?" Ellie asked after a while, Sawyer would have entertained her with stories of his cons, but he was kind of occupied with this thing called breathing.

"Don't know, kid, they might be in a field frolicking with unicorns." He added as an afterthought. "You should get some sleep, don't ya think?"

"No," Ellie said, "Maddy and daddy never force me to sleep early."

"They don't, huh?" Sawyer humored her.

Ellie shook her head wildly. "Nope," she lied.

"Guess they don't want you to be tall then."

Ellie's eyes widened comically. "W-what?"

"They didn't tell you?" Sawyer feigned shock. "It's when you sleep you grow. Otherwise you stay that hobbit-size. Remember Charlie? Yeah, he never slept when he was a kid, never listened to his folks. That's how he ended up the way he is."

Ellie looked horrified. "Is it true?"

"No, I'm lying," Sawyer said sarcastically. "Scram or sleep."

Ellie chose the latter. She curled herself up beside Sawyer (which was an unforeseen possibility) and sighed, closing her eyes. Sawyer didn't know what to do. He had a little bundle of annoying lying beneath his right arm and he couldn't move without making this bundle of annoying probably even more annoying.

"Sawya," Ellie mumbled. Close enough. "Is Andy, Kimmie an' everyone else good too?"

"Yeah, kid. They are. Sleep or the monster will get ya."

Ellie whined, and then one minute later she was fast asleep, probably going to dream nightmares.

Sawyer himself had given up on getting any sleep with the throbbing in his leg. He could walk, but there was still the possibility that if he didn't rest enough his leg would get infected and that meant – well, Sawyer was hell of an optimist – death.

Ellie shifted beside him, but didn't do anything that would've helped him, like falling asleep somewhere else.

Sawyer had begun to drift off himself, eyelids heavy, the fire dying, when he heard rustle behind him. His eyes flew open; he tried to look over his shoulder.

"James."

He looked up, and Locke hushed him, a finger to his lips and a meaning glance at Ellie's sleeping form.

"I need you to come with me," Locke whispered. "I have kidnapped Ben – and I want you to kill him."

. .

Sawyer believed them to be together, Maddy and Allen, but Allen was nowhere to be seen as the girl – the young woman – stumbled through the trees. She was clutching at her right arm with her left hand, she was making chocked-off noises, like she wanted to sob but couldn't. Somebody was following her, making sure she got to her destination.

Maddy had grown up with both Liz and Garrett, and they both had taught her many things, and despite barely leaving the Barracks she knew much of the island and with every step she feared the destination. She knew what Garrett, even Liz in short words, had warned her of.

And that was of ever going to the forbidden area.

She turned her head, like she wanted to tell her follower this, but the follower showed her the weapon and she continued on.

Their steps slowed, until the follower's steps were gone, and her breaths were loud in the sounds from the darkening jungle.

She heard steps – not hers, not the follower's – and she stopped. She fumbled with the flashlight.

Leaves rustled. She turned on the light.

He gasped. "Maddy."

Maddy knew this was the destination; it didn't make her feel any relief. She knew what she had to do. She knew what her follower's words had meant when telling her "to persuade him to go away."

"Jim," she said softly, lowering her flashlight a little so he wouldn't be blinded.

Jim was crowded up in her space in less than a second after, hugging her hard, ignoring the flashlight between them and Maddy's hitch of breath. From surprise and from fear, but her follower stayed hidden in the shadows.

"Oh thank all that is holy and all that is not." Jim laughed. "You're alive!" He made another short laugh. Then he pulled away from the hug, holding her away at an arm's length. "Because you are alive, right?" He looked seriously at her with eyes that were too light in contrast to the dirt on his skin. "And you are you? Maddy, or not-Maddy, what did I dress up as for the first Halloween here on the island?"

Maddy did not ask how she could not be her, because she now knew very well what he meant, too well. "You dressed up as a sandwich."

Jim's face split into that grin again. "And everyone thought I was really tasty."

She hadn't even smiled, but Jim hadn't noticed, too occupied with the thrill that she was who she said she was.

"You cannot believe what I have endured to find you. An epic tale, it is, of assassins and poster-wall worthy wistfully looking-out-at-the-sea men. And no offense to your dad-raiser and all, but Gary can really be a pain in the rear."

"G-Garrett? You were with him?"

Jim looked taken aback. "Uh, I mean, uh, err, so, Maddy. Uh, great coincidence, us meeting her in these woods… um, after you escaped, got shot from what I've heard even. Big stroke of luck. Uh. So, where's your great mansion? I can settle with a cottage but no less for the night."

"You need to return," Maddy said.

"Okay, so you haven't built a cottage? I can live in a shack."

"Jim… you have to go back."

"Or I can sleep under a leaf. Always wanted to try that, looking up at the stars, we used to do that a lot? Remember that time I got Karl drunk just when he was about to climb that roof? Good times."

"I came here to find you and tell you that you have to return," Maddy said quickly, the words sounding false and inadequate in her own head.

"Right…" Jim raised his eyebrows. "I risked my neck and you got shunned by everyone and now when we star-crossed friends have finally reunited to finally be able to play around here you want me to go back?"

"You have to," Maddy said.

"Maddy," he laughed nervously, "I can't go back. There is no going back for me, for either of us. I shot at Lalah. I helped them – the survivors – just like you wanted me to and then I left, and got chased around by crazy Liz in a labyrinth and then I got chased by something you once described to me as a basilisk of sorts I don't even know, Maddy. But what I do know is that I cannot go back. So can you just get over this little freak-out and we can find some shelter and maybe swap stories or something?"

"I am sorry for all the inconveniences you have been put through," Maddy said, looking stoic compared to the mess that was Jim at the moment, his smile had slipped away from his face and he was waving his hands around in frustration.

"Inconveniences? Go back? What the hell, Maddy!" he shouted, too loud for the night in the jungle. "I left for you!"

"And now you need to return, for not only me, for everyone. Jim, you are my... closest friend." Her lower lip shivered. "Please."

He crossed his arms. "No, I'm staying with you. I will follow you, stalker-style I will be there. Talking nonsense nonstop."

"I will run. You know who I grew up with, you know I can. I find it amazing you could even find me in the first place."

Jim swallowed. "C'mon, Maddy, I can't go back. They will freaking exterminate me. Dalek style."

Maddy shook her head. "Jim, they will not. You are a good liar. You need to go back, because… because I need you there."

"You need me there? What if I'm needed here?" He shifted uncomfortably, like his next words physically hurt to say. "What if… you need me? You're too gullible, what if the trees try to take advantage of you?"

"Jim… I left to save Claire but Claire is not saved is she?"

Jim was silent, but they both knew the answer.

"You need to be there and make sure that when Ben does something – if they try to hurt them more – you need to be there to prevent that. Please, Jim."

Jim looked like he was wavering. "They'll shoot me on the spot."

"Your father will never let them."

"My father?" Jim chuckled. "Who doesn't even want to see me?"

Maddy looked sad. "He always did," she said quietly.

Jim looked confused. "What?"

"I - I am truly sorry, but you have to return. I know Ben is planning something which I have no ability to prevent but you can. Do you remember that tape, the tape from the seventies? The tape with the warning of Florence Bluth?"

Of course he remembered the tape. "Yes."

She licked her lips nervously. "The man who spoke in that video, he is in danger, and you need to go back and find out how and then warn him."

"Why are you asking me to do it?" he said, voice low, weak, the voice of a man who had given up.

Her voice wasn't shivering anymore. "Because you always do the things I ask for."

Jim smiled sadly. He pointed a finger at her. "You should return that favor y'know, someday."

Maddy nodded, tears in her eyes. "Of course."

"I don't have to go back right now, do I? You know we could still do the gazing at the stars swapping stories thing, right?"

Maddy looked like she was about to say yes, but Jim continued.

"And then I would have more time to tell you about your fath-Gary."

"I will run," Maddy said sternly.

Jim stared at her, and now he was making those doe-eyes. "What happened?"

"Leave."

"Will you die out here all alone in the jungle?"

"Leave."

"I ain't letting that happen."

"Leave."

"I'll find you again with my obviously amazing track skills that in no way was helped by a pretty murderer chick."

"Leave."

"Fine, I know when I'm unwanted. Just remember this moment when you're wailing over my grave, all right? Remember that you were the one who sent poor innocent me into the lion's den."

He began to leave, then stopping, turning around.

"See ya," he said too unkindly and walked away.

Maddy stayed in the same spot, flashlight turned to the ground, heart beating hard in her chest. When the noises from Jim stumbling into trees and tripping over roots had faded away completely, she heard her follower, who had listened to the entire conversation, come out of the trees behind her.

"I did what you asked me to do," she said, voice trembling, "he's going back, almost certainly to his own death. Because he listens to me, he does, he trusts me."

A tear slipped away from her eye. "What happens now?"

She turned around, and looked at him, looked at the man who had raised her since she was a child, to the man who she once actually called a father.

Garrett raised the gun and pointed it at her temple.

. .

"I want to talk with him."

Desmond put a hand on Zidler's chest and pushed him easily away. "No," he said, "not right now, brother."

"Nothing else matters! I gotta talk with Fox."

"Hey to you too, Zidler," said Jack.

Zidler's eyes widened. He seemed to just only realize who the people with them were. "J-Jack?" He looked over Desmond's shoulder. "Claire?"

Claire made a grimace, an attempt at a smile.

Zidler saw Kim lead Fox away from there, he wanted to go after them, shout at Fox, ask him questions, stupid things like you were my friend and all this time you were a –

But Jack was in front of him, Claire too, and Andrea, Desmond and Lori still looked grave like somebody had died, which many people had of course, but still, he figured this was cause for great celebration.

"Will you wake everyone up?" Andrea asked him.

Claire looked like she was freezing, arms holding herself tightly in a hug. Arms that wanted to hold something, someone, else.

"Yeah, yeah," Zidler said, tearing his gaze away from Claire's haunted face (she had short hair now, he saw, bruises, flickering eyes). "'Course I will."

He ran away, shouting at the top of his lungs. "Oi! Everyone! A HELICOPTER IS HERE!"

Everybody rushed out from their shelters and everyone's attention was turned to the sky. Andrea stared at Zidler.

He just shrugged and took Margo's hand as she ran over to them. "It's a lot more effective than 'oi, Claire and Jack are back.' They've been gone so long people might've forgotten them."

Claire cried out when she saw Hurley with Aaron, she ignored everyone's attempts to reach her until she held her son in her arms again. Zidler saw tears run down her face; Margo was holding his hand, hard. Everyone was watching the son and the mother reuniting.

Soon Hurley was hugging Claire, and Libby too, and they both led her away to some place more secluded. Andrea seemed all right with it.

"I'll explain," Jack said. Andrea nodded, at loss for words.

Lori was standing back, outside everything, Zidler noticed, and he knew why. He could see it, if not feel it, Jack and Claire returning this close to rescue… he didn't feel that happy fuzzy feeling he thought he was going to, no sunshine and rainbows. He just felt like something was very off, an uncomfortable feeling in his stomach.

That might have been the weird fruit Wendy had given him earlier, it might have been Fox betraying them all, but it was probably the way Jack was looking at them all, at Andrea, at him.

As if he didn't know them anymore.

. .

"What?" Sawyer asked Locke.

"I'm keeping him in this old Dharma bunk," Locke explained. "He's tied up and – and I couldn't do it, James."

"What the hell –?" Sawyer began but Locke hushed him again, a meaning look at Ellie.

"I saw Allen and a young woman – Maddy, is it? They are coming back soon. You have to leave before they return. She will be safe. We have to go now."

Locke carefully removed Sawyer's arm from Ellie's side, because he seemed incapable of doing so himself.

"We have to hurry," Locke said.

Sawyer stood up, he threw one worried look at Ellie, but then he heard another similar crackle in the opposite direction, which was probably Maddy and Allen, and he followed Locke back into the jungle.

In Locke's bag was a file, the same file Richard had by his side when he spoke to Owen, the same file that Richard had given him, in his bag was also a lighter, knives and other things one could need to survive in the jungle.

Locke only gave Sawyer one of the knives. As soon as he had the knife in a tight grip in his hand, Sawyer put the knife to Locke's throat, slowly, but Sawyer's hand didn't shiver. "Now you tell me the truth," he growled.

"I told you the truth."

"You got that bug-eyed bastard tied up?"

"Yes, I do."

"Then why me?" he asked. "You want him dead, you kill him."

"I tried – I – I can't. I'm not a murderer, but you, the man you killed in Sydney." Locke saw the shocked look in Sawyer's eyes. "They got files on us, all of us."

Sawyer didn't ask what more was in that file, he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

He lowered the knife and they began to walk.

"How'd you find me?" he asked and tripped over another branch on the ground. Locke was walking several feet before him.

"I was looking for you."

"Oh-okay, if you don't wanna te –" Sawyer's voice broke, it felt like he would break too, he stopped, grimacing and screaming quietly in his head. The pain.

"Stop," Locke said, Sawyer had already done so. "We won't get there if you strain yourself, sit, wait here and I'll be right back." He hadn't looked at him once when saying that.

Locke left into the jungle, not bothered by Sawyer's protests.

Sawyer groaned and sat down; he groaned more in pain when Locke came back and put the weird plant-mush thing on his leg. If it had been Bonnie doing this, she would have told him not be such a baby, thought Sawyer. Locke was patient.

"It should keep the pain down until we reach the bunk," Locke said, but there was doubt in his eyes.

"I already know I'm a dead man," Sawyer said.

It didn't keep the pain down, but Sawyer felt less dizzy as they began walking again, this time side by side.

"How'd you find me?" Sawyer asked again.

"Because I knew where to look."

"Never gonna end the vague answers, are ya?" Sawyer asked, even making a slight smirk.

Locke answered as patiently as always, "No."

. .

Owen twisted and turned in her little makeshift bed. She felt like she was suffocating, drowning in the damp air of the tent. She was sticky with sweat, and she found herself looking at the fading light of the kerosene lamp before she remembered to close her eyes again.

When she did, there wasn't darkness, but Sven's eyes flickering before stilling, paralyzed. They had buried him instead of burning him. They hadn't told her where.

She made a frustrated noise, and gave up her failed attempts to sleep. She sat up, wiping at her eyes but there were no tears to wipe away, and she swung her legs over so her bare toes touched the ground.

That's when she saw another figure standing inside the tent.

"No," Owen said, as if she could deny the person in front of her until it became nonexistent. "No. You can't…" Owen stopped; she would embarrass herself if she said this was a dream, a hallucination.

"Because you killed me?" Sayid Jarrah said. "Is that why I can't… be here?"

"I have seen stranger things happened," Owen said, more to her than him. She swallowed. "I just find it strange that after so much time almost forgetting what'd happened there in the jungle, you suddenly begin haunting me."

"I think you mean avoiding you," Sayid said, and he looked quite real from the dim light, curly hair, serious eyes, she narrowed her eyes and saw faint white scars at his hairline. "They do not wish for you to see me. Thinks you will… or I will…"

"I will scream," Owen whispered, staring at him, into his eyes. Her face turned upwards, hands clutching at nothing.

Sayid chuckled. "I just wanted to say hello."

Owen had a hard time keeping her breathing and words steady. It felt like her throat was closing. "Are you here to…?" She couldn't even say it.

"Get revenge?" Sayid asked. "I am considering it."

He took a sudden step forward, in her hurry to get away, Owen knocked over the lamp.

She didn't have to scream. Three people rushed in, she recognized two of them, the mute man called Niles and Richard.

Owen was too busy hiding in the shadows, she didn't understand the words they were saying, the shouts, the angry shouts and the orders because she wasn't listening to anything but her own heartbeat.

"I'll stay!" she heard Richard shout, and his shout was so unlike him, all furious and desperate, and when they all left – everyone but Richard.

Owen felt the panic lower itself fast, like water rushing out and she could breathe again instead of drowning. And with that, she could also keep her voice steady and head high.

"What the hell?" she said and stepped out from the dark. Richard was putting the lamp up on the table again, lightening up the tent and she could see his face.

"What did he say?" he asked her.

Owen shook her head, not knowing what else to do. "He's alive."

"I – we know."

"He's alive," she repeated, and she felt her legs go wobbly underneath her, she had to sit down, soon, or she was going to fall, but she couldn't bring herself to move. "He's alive. No, I saw him. I hit him. He wasn't breathing. I left him. He wasn't breathing anymore. Richard, he wasn't alive."

She hadn't realized Richard had been walking towards her until he gently took both of her arms and led her back to the bed. A smartass comment flew through her head – buy me dinner first – but he was alive.

Owen couldn't close her mouth, she felt like she was about to cry. She didn't cry. Owen didn't cry. She hadn't even cried at the private funeral, at the little headstone, too small to belong to an adult. She just kept her mouth open because if she closed it she wouldn't be able to breathe.

Richard spoke, "One of us found him in the jungle… he was hurt, Owen, but not close to dying. When you got here… we found it best to have him avoid you, Ben didn't – we didn't – want you to lose your head over something like this."

"I told you I killed him," Owen said, still out of it. "I thought, since I had already murdered someone I could –" She didn't finish the sentence.

"Sayid may not be one of Ben's most trusted, but he's… He is one of us now and he obeys by our rules and he won't lay a single finger on you. I swear."

If Owen would have looked at Richard that moment, she would have seen how his eyes were gazing at her, and that he meant every single word far more than she could ever imagine, but she didn't. She stared at nothing and thus understood nothing but confusion.

"I was just shocked," she said, convincing herself, "just a minor… issue. Surprise, that's all. He's alive, great for him. Wonder how Claret felt about that."

"Claret doesn't know."

But Owen wasn't listening to him. "I saved her, you know, I know I betrayed them all, for the bloody better good but I saved her. Ben should be damn grateful 'bout that."

Richard said nothing, but he stayed with her until she asked him to leave, which wasn't until morning, and that was a long time.

. .

"I don't… I just have a bad feeling about it, is all," Zidler explained. They were trying to go to sleep, but Margo was too awake and Zidler kept talking and talking and talking, going from hyper over getting rescued to bitter over Fox to suspicious about Jack and Claire.

"You always have a bad feeling about everything don't you?" Margo finally snapped, but there came no answer, because Zidler, the bastard who had kept her awake, had fallen asleep in a second.

She left their new shelter and went out, she saw a few people up, but no one who was alone or noticed her, until she saw a familiar shape in the distance by an also familiar palm tree.

"You couldn't sleep either, huh?" Margo asked with a smile.

Fred looked up and watched Margo sit down beside him by the tree he had spent so much time with before the survivors had learned the truth about him.

"No." Fred sighed.

Margo unconsciously put a hand on her belly, Fred was too aware of that fact. He shifted uncomfortably.

"It's happening tomorrow, isn't it?" she asked softly. "With Jack and Claire returning. It's all leading down to tomorrow?"

"Yes…" Fred said grimly, but then he turned to her and his face shone with a smile. "Or the day after tomorrow, probably then it's all doomed."

Margo laughed. "Rescue," she whispered.

"Rescue," Fred repeated. Rescue, rescue, rescue, if only he could be sure that was what would happen. He knew Milou, Miles and Janna had other missions, he had another mission, but he wanted to help these people.

"It doesn't feel quite right," Margo said suddenly, "it just doesn't. I can't believe I'm repeating Zidler's words that he totally stole from Star Wars – but I have a bad feeling about this."

Fred understood what she meant, but he still asked, "Why?"

"Everyone's not here. Sean, Ellie, so many others… it doesn't feel right. I don't think… I know I have the 'unborn child' and all, but I don't think I want to leave before I know everyone else has too, you know?"

Fred knew all too well.

"I don't think you are going to leave as soon as possible either?"

Fred shook his head.

"It's about – it's about Flor, isn't it?"

Fred nodded.

Margo was silent for a moment. "It's hard to imagine all the things Zidler tells me. He talks… he talks about getting a house. He talks about all the money we're going to get, all the things we can do with it. I told him I'd give it all away to charity and he just smiled and said that was okay because he had enough for the both of us."

Fred didn't even ask her why she was telling him these things, he had gotten used to the fact that Margo often needed to vent to him. He just pushed his glasses up and listened.

"I have nightmares. I – I often wake him up in the middle of night with me raging, trashing around. He just soothes me until I go back to sleep."

She buried her head in her hands, and Fred still understood all too well. There was no rage like in a dream, no frustration and no helplessness compared.

"When we leave, what's expected of us, he got it all planned out. Everything. It's not even his baby. I haven't even properly told him I love him. This seems like the stupidest problem right now. I know. But… he's so sure he loves me, and I just don't know if we're going to make out it alive before this is all over."

"Some of us don't want to rescue you," Fred blurted out. "That's not the primary reason we're here."

"I know," Margo replied, looking out into the dark sea and the hints of a sunrise at the horizon, "that's what I was saying."

. .

"He's here? Behind that door?"

Locke nodded; Sawyer pulled away the vines, giving Locke a nod back as he stepped inside first.

He saw a person sitting against the wall, bound, gagged with a bag over their head.

Sawyer almost laughed, making a surprised chuckle. "Son of a bitch! You got him. You really kidnapped the little bastard." He rushed over to the person, pulled off the bag, but the fact that met him was not the face of Ben Linus.

"What the –"

The door closed behind him.

. .

"Hello, Claret."

She had been falling asleep; startled she looked into the eyes of Sean. He was very close to her, and his eyes were moving fast, and he seemed to be shivering, but he was talking and he was sitting up.

"S-Sean?"

"You need to tell me what happened between the Others capturing me and me ending up here," he said coldly.

And Claret did. She told him about Sawyer, she told him about him being drugged to a shivering, mindless mess. She told him how she had dragged him away from there. After a moment of hesitation, she explained the new drugs and the man called José Gonzales.

"I thought he was my father. But he wasn't," she said, missing the dark look in Sean's eyes, for him the name José Gonzales meant something completely else.

"He's not with the Others either. We have been working together for some time now. He revealed who my real father was. Anthony Cooper. He's not exactly the most charming person in the world. And then there is the fact that he won't tell me if he really killed my…"

But the rest of her words meant nothing to him.

Sean turned away from her, and grimaced.

Claret handed him the water and the bottle of pills.

. .

The cradle had broken in a storm they said. Claire didn't mind. She rocked Aaron to sleep on her own. Libby and Hurley had left her, thinking she would be going to sleep too, thinking her lack of words and aborted gazes was all trauma, but she had stayed up. How could she go to sleep after everything that had happened?

She was back, but it didn't feel like she was back. Before the camp had had a sense of… security. A sense that despite the possibility of a monster in the jungle and people wanting them hurt, she would be safe at the beach with her friends, but now there was nothing of that odd security left, only fear.

Jack believed they had escaped, thinking Juliet was on their side. Claire knew Juliet was there to make sure she would give her baby to the Others. What Juliet didn't know, was that Claire had entirely different plans, plans involving packing a bag with essential things and then leaving into the jungle with her child.

She just wanted to pretend, she thought she would have been able to, when she saw everyone again, all of their faces, but she felt so disconnected. She had seen Kaylee, and remembered the last time she had seen Kaylee, down in the Staff. And then Margo, with a growing belly, and everyone else who had changed in ways she couldn't see but just knew, knew it was all different and it was all worse.

She couldn't pretend. She thought briefly of Maddy and Allen escaping – they weren't here, neither was Ellie. She wondered if they were hiding out there in the jungle somewhere, maybe she would find them too.

She stood up; making sure the bag had what it needed. She could maybe pick up some more fruit on her way, but she couldn't carry too much. She had to be quick and swift to get out of there and past all the traps lined around the camp.

"Claire."

Claire whirled around, she saw Jack step inside, Juliet in tow. She stared wide-eyed at them.

"Juliet…" She glanced at the duffel bag, wondering how she could explain it all away, beg please don't hurt Brian. She looked at Jack; did the other survivors know she was there?"

"Don't scream," Jack said, "they don't know she's here yet. We need to talk."

"Jack knows," Juliet said, and her voice sounded soothing. "I told him everything – Claire, I helped Flor escape. I helped her the first time she came to us and then again. I helped Jack. I've lied to Ben. We have the time to sort things out now."

"T-time?" Claire stuttered. She glanced at Aaron sleeping in the bundle. "He has Brian, he's got so many else, there is nothing… I don't know what to do."

"Claire," Juliet said, "you need to decide what's more important to you, your son or Brian."

"Are you asking me to choose between life and –"

"No!" Juliet interrupted her. "I'm trying to make you choose to take a risk. This is not going to be simple. Ben did send me here to infiltrate, to do so many other things, but I'm not going to do that. We need you on our side when we're going to tell everyone here."

"Tell them what? And why did you leave, what did you get?" Claire asked in a whisper, she felt like her legs were going to give out.

Jack and Juliet exchanged one of their glances again.

Juliet opened her backpack and took out a strange mechanism. "It's a satellite phone," she explained. "To contact the freighter, so we call all get off this island. Together. And why I was really here?"

She took a step closer to Claire. She looked down before looking up. "Was, in a short sense of words, to make sure Ben would get you, get Aaron, and everyone else he needs."

. .

Locke waited patiently outside the door, hearing his father say one of his many names – Sawyer – he could hear it snap inside the Sawyer he had come to know's head.

Locke didn't say anything or move or make any sound as he heard the last gurgles of Anthony Cooper's, the man who had ruined his life, the last attempts at breathing, and the silence.

When the silence had lasted for a few moments, he opened the door and met James's eyes.

"I'm so sorry for this," he said, and he meant it. If there had been any other way – but there hadn't been. James was now irrevocably beyond repair, after everything he had seen, and this, and Locke was sorry for that, but hoped that James would find his path again, perhaps if he went back…

But Locke knew, and James knew, that James would end up like the body behind him.

Dead.

. .

Kim wasn't sleeping either. Fox had been taken away from her to speak with Desmond, Andrea, Lori and Milou. This had concluded in her not going to sleep at all, anxiously pacing back and forth. laying down, standing up, tapping her fingers, trying to read, words getting mixed together until she read them backwards, and in the end – Andrea had come out of the shelter they were discussing in alone.

Kim cornered her immediately. "Let him stay," she said quickly before Andrea could run away or shout at her.

"No," Andreas said, she didn't sound so harsh though, but still determined.

"You need him, you brought him back, we can't leave him here…"

"He doesn't deserve to go with us," Andrea said, her voice shivering.

"Andy – he's helping you, isn't he? Even after you let him go out there to die alone! I'm not asking you to forgive him I'm just… Andy… p-please." Her voice sounded broken. She saw Andrea waver, tears in the corner of her eyes.

"I know you love him," Andrea said slowly, sadly, putting a hand to cover her face, like she didn't want Kim to see her hurting over it, "but that is not an excuse, Kim. I should know it isn't."

Kim backed away. "Jack and Claire returned," she said.

"Yes, yes they did."

"You should ask Fox what he thinks about that." And she left, walking away from Andrea's stuttering sounds, almost-words, and almost-regrets.

. . . .

How they ended up here, after wet cigarettes, tendencies of stalking and a long conversation over the cooling French fries they had ordered, she wasn't entirely sure of. She had seen it coming, of course. But Kim a few years back – even a year back – would have never talked to him in the first place.

"You will get lung cancer," Kim told him, watching him. He turned around, there were clouds on the sky but a small stream of sunshine still found a way to hit his face, it only made him look even more colorless against the contrast of the dirty black city in the background.

"I had no idea." Simon took the cigarette away from his mouth, lowered his arm, some trailing up. "You have completely utterly turned my world upside-down."

"Oh, get off it," she said, laughing a little as she'd said it in an accent very much like his.

"Oh no." Simon stomped on the cigarette, didn't bother to throw it into the trash can like he usually did ("That will catch on fire one day," Kim used to say) and strolled over to the bed before climbing on it. "I mean it. You, Kimika Yamazaki, have changed my world."

She struggled back on her elbows, giggling a little as he crawled over her body.

"Rocked it," he said. "Spun it around to wildly kick it around." He leaned down, and kissed her.

"Up." Kiss. "Side." Kiss. "Down." Kiss.

It wasn't like they were in love. Kim knew what love was, she believed in it. She had seen love fade away between her parents, seen her sister cry every night, face hidden, red-rimmed eyes in the morning, she'd seen her brother defy her parents to visit that girl with the ring in her nose and she'd experienced it herself. She'd felt flutters in her tummy and annoyance and jealousy and warmth and safety and craziness, she'd felt long hugs and awkward conversations and a familiar smell and a mouth and body that fit perfectly to hers, and she'd felt the pain of having all of that being ripped away from her, stomped on, and the hollowness in her chest, behind the tears, inside every corner of her skin.

This was not love. This was her and Simon, and they knew from the first moment they saw each other that it was going to mean something, something grand and or something ugly, but not like that.

Kim wasn't bothered by the knowledge, and so one day when she knocked on Simon's door, walked in and saw that it was empty – the stove was there, the bed, but no pack of cigarettes, no food in the fridge, he'd gone. She felt ache, the kind of ache you feel when you lose a friend, but not the hollowness of having something amazing, something promising taken away.

Kim always knew she was going to see him again, but when she did much later in life after they both had experienced things almost no one could dream of, she never expected to feel fury over it.

But that was later, and this was now, and now Kim was struggling with her bills and struggling with the emotions that came with Angela and Jared visiting once again.

And nothing got better when one of the regulars at the club actually tried to offer her money to do a lot more than just dance after the show.

She thought of what Simon had said to her, once, he might have been a little drunk, but the words still etched themselves inside her mind: "Your are meant for great things, Yamazaki."

She quit her job, and it was with little surprise and more sadness she heard of her parents' death the day afterwards.

. . . .

"Why didn't you tell me Sayid Jarrah was alive?" Owen threw him a short glance, and then she looked at the corner of the tent.

Ben though was looking at her, only her. "Because that was Jacob's will."

"I see you and Richard use the same notes." Owen snorted, still talking to the corner. "Why would Jacob not want me to see the man I didn't murder? And don't you dare say anything like 'Jacob works in mysterious ways.'"

"Why don't you ask Jacob yourself?"

Owen now looked at him, to see if he was serious. Ben stared right back. His hand was shivering, just slightly.

"Yes, may I?" Owen faked a honey dripping smile. "See him, I mean?"

"I'm afraid that is not possible."

"And why is that, Ben?" She crossed her arms, walked slowly closer to him.

"You do not get to visit Jacob, he summons you."

"That sounds like a hell of a lot of crap, Ben. So he calls you, then? And the others?"

"He only talks to me," Ben said slowly.

"Ain't that convenient?" Owen stopped. "Wizard of Oz, cute little movie with a chick called Dorothy, yellow brick-road, all those things. Ever heard of the phrase 'man behind the curtain?' So not even Richard gets to see him?"

"I said I was the only one —"

"Take me to him."

"No."

"I am not Richard. I am special, ain't I? Everyone says so. And I've just made my sacrifice, I think I deserve this. Don't you?"

"No."

"Huh... so. You are not letting me to see Jacob, and I'm telling everyone that you're a fraud. That Jacob doesn't exist. Good to have it figured out. Goodbye."

"Wait —"

She turned around, the smile gone. "Jacob doesn't exist. He's just somethin' you made up. You're a good liar, except for the shivering hand. It's all in the details."

Ben's hand stopped shivering. "Jacob does exist," he said again in the same determined but slightly frustrated tone.

"Then take me to him."

"All right. I will. We'll leave tomorrow morning."

"Tomorrow morning?" Owen yelled.

Ben stared at her. He spoke in short breaths, "It might have escaped you but you are not or main priority here."

Owen knew she was fighting a lost battle, but when had she ever backed away from even that? "Then who is?"

"Eva."

They stared at each other.

"Eva?" Owen asked, taken aback.

Ben nodded slowly, almost looking smug. "She's gone and we'd like to find her, so after we've moved. Tomorrow morning."

. .

"Are you coming with me?" Sean asked, turning to look at Claret.

Claret shook her head. "I… I can't. I have to go back now."

A breeze made her dark curls fall in front of her face, and she looked very fragile there next to him.

"All alone?" he asked.

"I'm not all alone," she said, and Sean thought of a memory – a yellow file, a man exchanging bottles of pills with Claret before disappearing.

Sean wanted to care a little more, wanted to argue, but it was all he could muster. The world was colorless, Claret's face lifeless, his fingers numb and his insides hollow.

"All right. Anything you wish for me to tell them?"

"They cannot trust Fox," she said. "And something will happen soon. Ben is planning something but I don't know what."

"Full of information, aren't you?"

"Just remember two pills a day."

"Why thank you, doctor."

They stood next to each other, still, for just a moment longer before Claret took a deep breath.

"Bye, Sean. I – I hope you can forgive me. Someday."

Sean walked away first, towards the camp with heavy steps. They were all assembled, looking like they were arguing with each other, every one of them.

Claret walked away, but she kept her gaze on his back when he stepped out on the beach, and didn't disappear into the trees until she saw Wendy noticing him.

. .

Author's Notes: Sorry for the long wait. Won't abandon this story again, I promise. I was just procrastinating everything by being awkward and by the fact that I do not own that ability to make decisions. My promise is very much in the freaky Janna "I never break a promise way" so you can be sure I'll hold it.

Namaste.