Chapter 5

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised the next time I'm invited to a reunion, it's because there's some kind of crisis."

"Come on, Saint Francis, where'd the fun if we just invited you for a beer when our lives were nice and dull?" James said with a trace of his old snark.

"Also, lest you forget, airports don't exactly make any of us comfortable," Kate reminded him.

Frank Lapidus was basically giving the Oceanics the business. Considering that he'd been part, however inadvertently, of the mission that had gotten them back to civilization everybody who'd been on the plane did have the occasional meeting with him every couple of weeks.

"Honestly, it's been a matter of how much you really want to know," Jack told them. "You've been good enough to keep our secrets, but even then there's only so much that we've been comfortable telling, well, anybody else."

"Look, I'm willing to admit there was a certain level of weirdness with everything I saw and what you told me," Frank began.

"That's the thing, Frank, "Locke said slowly. "Most of what happened on the island has to do with things that most people, certainly not most of us were willing to accept even with what we saw."

"John's right. Almost everything I saw on that island – it really did a number on my head," Jack told them. "It took me months to finally accept what actually happened to me – to all of us – as real. Why do you think we go out of our way to avoid the limelight?"

"I'll admit I was going over your novel with a highlighter trying to figure out what might have been cribbed from reality," Frank told James.

"I have a feel that's the reason I have so many people re-reading them," James told them. "I was trying to find a way to put the island behind me. Now there's a good chance it's coming back to bite us in the ass."

"So Jack told me," Frank admitted. "I'll be honest, the first few months I was back in civilization I was looking over my shoulder half the time. " He looked at Penny. "No offense, but I was really relieved when your father ended up going to prison."

"None really taken," Penny told them. "Part of me had hoped that Desmond and I could go back to a normal life." She caught everybody's look. "Something resembling normal. But now it seems that something from that island has followed us back to the mainland."

"Abaddon hasn't tried to reach out to me," Frank told them. "But I'm not an idiot. I wasn't supposed to come back from that mission any more than we were supposed to bring you back."

"I don't mean for you to go over old stories," Dan spoke up, "but for the benefit of those of us who are relatively new, maybe there are a few things you can explain."

Frank raised a gray eyebrow. "You do know why I'm connected?"

"You were supposed to be flying Oceanic 815," Dan admitted. "What some of us don't know is how you ended up on my father's radar to begin with and on that boat."

"Fair enough." Frank took a sip from his glass – tonic water, he was trying to stay relatively dry – and began.

"It was such an innocuous thing at first. My alarm clock didn't go off. Because of that, I overslept. So they called in Seth to fly the plane instead of me. I was feeling a little ashamed at the time, but when I heard that the flight had disappeared from the radar and was missing," Frank looked at them. "I didn't exactly have the best reputation for staying sober before September 22nd. Throw in survivor's guilt and the loss of a friend and for the next month I may have been sober for all of ten minutes."

"There are a lot of us here who aren't in a position to judge," Jack said, putting a hand on Frank's shoulder.

"Around November, one of the few friends I had left convinced me to go to the Bahamas to try and handle a charter flight service. They average three flights a month; the idea I would somehow get clean with less pressure." Frank shook his head. "I just had more time to get drunk. It would be really coarse to say that the discovery of the wreckage saved me. All it really did was stop me from killing my liver. There were so many more interesting ways I could've ended up dead."

Charlotte was puzzled. "I would've thought that would've made things worse."

"It did for quite a few minutes. Then I started looking at it, and my instincts started to tell me something was fishy."

"What exactly?" Locke asked. "You never did get around to telling me."

"The wreckage that the Christina F. found showed the fuselage face up, like your plane had done a belly flop into ocean and landed on its stomach. Now, I've been to a few of these meetings afterwards, and I know that when a jet that size hits water that deep, the forward momentum causes it to spiral and turn upside down. Planes almost never are found right-side up."

"But there is that almost," Dan pointed out.

"I might've been able to let that go. Then about a day later, they started showing close-ups of the interior of the cabin." Frank swallowed. "Took a lot to look at them, but I thought I owed it to Seth. That's when I first became sure something was wrong."

"What was it?" Michael hadn't heard this part of the story.

"Seth Norris married his high school sweetheart. He never took off his wedding ring. It got to be a joke among my fellow pilots." Frank looked at them. "The footage was cloudy and my TV had static, but I could tell whoever was piloting that plane wasn't wearing a ring."

Sun looked down at her hand. There was a tradition that crossed all geographic borders.

"So I did what anyone else who sees something on TV they don't agree with does: I called the hotline and told them that this wasn't the plane." Frank winced. "I tried to give myself credibility by telling the operator that I knew so much because I was supposed to be flying the plane that day."

"And that probably put you on somebody's radar," Kate inferred.

"That's a pretty big hint. Oceanic never said anything. But two days later, I was reached out to by our mutual friend Naomi Dorrit." Frank told them. "She said that there were certain people who believed that the crash was a hoax, and that there was a plan in place to find the plane and whatever survivors might be left."

"Did she tell you she represented my father then?" Penny asked.

"She told me that he was financing the expedition because he believed there was a conspiracy. Maybe I should've taken that as a hint that he might have had something to do with it." Frank admitted. "But it was a combination of guilt and relief that someone was taking me seriously that I agreed to go along with it. So a week later, I was in Fiji aboard the Kahana. I didn't get a sense of just how screwed I was until I saw that bastard Keamy and his team taking target practice with machine guns."

"You were going to fall overboard or die in a helicopter crash, weren't you?" Locke presumed.

"That very well may have been the plan. I didn't start to get that suspicion until Naomi told me she was taking the first flight out."

"Was everybody on the crew giving different instructions?" Sayid asked. "Naomi's made it seem like her sole priority was that Penelope had sent the freighter and their priority had been to find Desmond."

"That's the one thing about that I can't figure," Jack admitted. "If the sole priority of your mission was to find and retrieve Ben, why didn't she express any interest in him at all? The man walked right up to her, and she didn't even seem to care. She literally went to her grave insisting she was there to save us."

"If you're looking for answer from me on that, I don't have any," Frank admitted. "Gault – the captain of the freighter – told me before boarding that Widmore believed that Ben Linus was responsible for the fake plane on the bottom of the ocean and that somehow he had found 325 dead bodies to fill it. Naomi and Keamy towed the party line. And it's not like I hadn't heard about Widmore's daughter. The day before we came to our final position, I had a conversation with George, the communications officer. He told me there was one priority – to jam any communications that might possibly come from Penelope Widmore."

Desmond and Penny looked at each other. "There's no question the bastard knew where I was and that you were looking for me," Desmond said grimly.

"And despite my best efforts, he knew I was closing in," Penny looked at Frank. "It must have been some kind of cover story. He didn't know where on the island Des was, but he must have assumed that he'd made contact with you by then."

"Wait," Frank said. "I can believe a lot more than I used to, but you're telling me that three years prior to the crash, your father arranged for you to end up on that island?"

"Something was behind Desmond coming there, that much we are certain of," Locke said in a tone that the Oceanics had come to know over the months they were stranded. "Her father just happened to put him on that route."

Jack wasn't inclined to disagree, given everything he knew now.

"Anyway, when Naomi finally made contact, Keamy ordered the helicopter to take him and his team to the island." Frank decided to go on. "He gave me a bearing, and told me to stay on it no matter what might happen. How he got that bearing I'll never know. And it was not an easy flight. The sky was perfectly clear when we took off. Ten minutes in, a storm front set in and the controls went crazy. I'd been flying for nineteen years; I've never seen anything like it. Took all my effort just to stay on the bearing and that still doesn't explain why we took off at three in the afternoon, flew for about half an hour, and it was the dead of night when I managed to touch down."

"If you're looking to us to explain that one…" Juliet just shrugged her shoulders.

"Apparently, I was the only one on that chopper who cared about it. Everyone else disembarked and made it painfully clear that I was not to do anything stupid." Frank stopped. "You basically know the rest. So are you prepared to enlighten me as to why I'm here?"

"We'll tell you what's going on and what we know," Jack said. "Explanations are another story, but at least you won't be in the dark."

Jack and Kate started by telling him about the last few days, how Abaddon had come to the hospital and threatened and assaulted Izzie. Dan and Charlotte then told them what they had found previously about their own connections to the island; Charlotte about what she'd found in Tunisia; Dan about the notebook he still couldn't explain.

After he covered that part, though, Dan went further. "We finally had a talk with Theresa yesterday," he told everybody. "To say it was awkward was an understatement."

"You didn't have to go to her," Charlotte pointed out gently.

"I wasn't wild about it, but she is one of the few scientists out there who knew about my work and had continued in her studies," Dan reminded them.

"How did she handle the notebook?" Jack asked the question they were all thinking.

'Apparently, given a chance to study what might be a breakthrough in temporal physics will get over any awkwardness one might have in a failed relationship," Dan said slowly.

"I'll try to remember that if things go south with us," Charlotte said with just a hint of playfulness.

"Could she make any sense of any part of it?" Kate asked.

"Half of it what she said was over my head; the other half I basically understood but she couldn't manage to get," Dan admitted.

"Like the part about you somehow writing in a notebook thirty years before you were born?" James asked.

"That was sort of in the middle," Dan told them. "The thing is none of the stuff about the island seemed to come as a shock to her. In fact, she wanted to know how come I was involved in it."

"Let me guess," Hurley said slowly. "She got an invitation from Darth Abaddon too."

"Not quite," Desmond told them. "Around the time Widmore was planning his trip the freighter, he sent Naomi Dorrit to pay her a visit. Naomi gave her the same story she gave Frank about a rescue mission as well as some coordinates that might be a possible location. Except all of them were in the middle of the ocean."

"So far, nothing new," Sayid told them. "The difference was Naomi told her to look for locations of major electromagnetic activity. And Teresa was able to make a connection because just a week earlier, there had been reports of something that seemed to resemble an electromagnetic pulse."

"When you blew the dam," Locke said, looking at Desmond.

"Teresa got permission to aim some satellites at the area, and what she saw scared the hell out of her," Daniel told them. "On November 29, 2004, for a period of roughly eighty-three seconds, something appeared in the Pacific that should never have been possible on Earth. An area so alive in electromagnetic activity that just being within a hundred miles of it could have spatial and temporal effects that shouldn't exist in nature."

No one had to ask what Teresa had gotten a glimpse of.

"Teresa met with Dorrit and told her unequivocally what she had seen and to stay away from that area. Instead Dorrit asked if she would like to see it in person and 'see things that will change your perspective as a scientist.'

"I didn't see her on the freighter," Frank said.

"Teresa was always more canny than I was," Dan said. "She told Dorrit to go to hell and not to contact her again. I'm kind of surprised my father's people never tried to go after here just for talking to them."

"They were kind of distracted at the time," Jack admitted.

"Dan and I had to reassure three times apiece that we had no interest in going anywhere near that island," Desmond told them. "We convinced her of our good intentions by saying our sole purpose was making sure that no one else tried to hurt people we loved in their efforts to find it. So then she went back to the notebook – and that's when she reached the point that she completely went round-the-bend."

"Could she make sense of any of it?" James asked.

"She understood the equations; as for making sense of it…" Dan trailed off, and started leafing through the notebook. He turned to a page that had a group of circles and other equations. "Apparently what 'I' was planning to do with the hydrogen bomb was to detonate near a pocket of energy."

"Around the time of 'The Incident'," James said. "That much we got even if didn't make any sense."

"Neither was what I was planning to do," Dan told them. "Somehow, I believe the fusion reaction dropped at this exact moment was somehow going to negate it. And in that sense…" Dan shook his head. "Teresa was studying this for years, and she couldn't believe it. She thought that somehow doing all of this would create an alternate timeline."

It took more than a minute for all of them to process this. "I've been writing a series of books trying to make sense of all this," James finally said. "But that may be the craziest thing I've ever heard."

"I can think of something crazier."

Everyone had almost forgotten that Walt was in the room. This was the first time he'd spoken up since the conversation had started.

"And what's that?" Hurley asked.

"Maybe it actually happened."

No one knew what to make of this – except Locke, who had a very good memory. "You're thinking of that vision you had before you told me not to open the hatch."

"We pretty much established that somehow I got a vision of the Incident," Walt told them. "And I saw Jack and all the rest of you in Dharma jumpsuits, dropping something in a pit just before it happened."

Jack, Kate, James and Juliet all looked at each other for a moment. Jack reacted first. "I have to ask, how could any of us known how to do this in the first place?"

"Because I told you to?" Daniel said slowly. "Considering everything that's in the journal, I think we have to at least consider the possibility that somehow I ended up on the island and that I met all of you. This journal is evidence of this."

"Evidence of what?" James said. "I'll admit my exposure to sci-fi has been more Star Wars than 2001, but if I'm getting you right, this journal is a record of something that never happened."

"To use your language, James, it is something of a mind-fuck," Dan admitted. "And I admit all of this goes beyond science and theory. But the facts are there. My mother pushed me all my life to study the very things that are in this journal. Every indication is that she wanted me to end up on the island." He looked at Walt. "You'll forgive my bluntness, but from what I understand, the Others abducted you because they believed you had psychic abilities which they could exploit."

Michael took his son's hand, and Walt drew strength. "That's pretty much why."

"And if you had those kinds of abilities and the island only enhanced them, perhaps you did get some vision of the future. Or at least a probable future." Dan shook his head. "I don't pretend to understand the science of it…"

"Like you said, the laws of science didn't exactly apply there." Juliet pointed out. "It still doesn't explain how any of us would have ended up in the 1970s, much less members of the Dharma Initiative."

"Maybe we can answer that," Charlotte said. "Well, we probably can't, but we might be able to fill in some of the gaps."

So Locke and Charlotte, with some assistance from Claire and Hurley, told them all what Olivia Goodspeed had told them about her years in the Dharma Initiative.

"There's a lot to unpack there," Sun said they were finished.

"Let's see if there's any part of it we can confirm independently." Jack looked at Locke. "How much of Olivia's story did Richard's verify?"

"Hard to say," John admitted. "There was clearly some truce between the Others and Dharma. Richard acknowledged that he was their representative in those meetings. He didn't go into the specifics of the terms or why the Purge ended up happening, but if Olivia is telling the truth – and Richard and Ben both confirm some version of it – then its pretty clear that Dharma had no intention of living up to their end."

"You're not seriously considering Benjamin Linus as a reliable source?" Sayid said scornfully.

"He isn't. Richard is." Locke told them. "And from what Olivia said about Radzinsky and her brother, they were pretty much doing what they were accused of."

"Speaking of which, and I never thought I'd say this, but I kind of feel sorry for Ben now," Hurley said slowly.

There was a certain level of skepticism from about half of the group. Frank, however, voiced it. "I'm sorry. You feel sorry for a man that made your time on the island miserable and who basically had a team sent to capture him and kill all of you."

"First of all, I'm pretty sure even if Ben was gone, Keamy and his people would still have killed us all," Locke reminded him. "And second, Ben had a horrible father. That's a problem far too many of us in the room can relate with."

There was a certain amount of nodding after this though Sayid, perhaps understandably, remained skeptical. "My father was a brutal man, too," he reminded them. "I didn't lead a slaughter of my own people as a result."

"That depends on what your definition of 'your own people' is." Everyone – even Jin – was a little surprised that Sun had spoken up. "When I was in college, I read some poetry by a man named Philip Larkin. " She looked at Charlotte and Penny. "I have a feeling you might know the passage I have in mind."

"'They may not mean to, but they do' "Penny quoted. "That's the second line of the poem. "I have that even the youngest of could handle the first, but I'll censor it nevertheless:' They f you up, your mom and dad."

"I didn't know who wrote it, but I heard the verse," Locke said. "I'm not saying that's the only reason we all ended up on the island, but it's really hard to argue it wasn't a factor."

Sayid was really to acknowledge that. "Leaving Ben out of it for the moment, considering where we found the Swan and the Pearl, there's little point in arguing that Dharma did violate that part of the truce. So it's logical to assume that they were doing something along the lines of the Orchid."

"You never found that station and Richard never took you there," Jack said to Locke. "Did you ever ask him or any of the Others about it? I find it hard to believe they wouldn't have known about it."

"I did ask him after I found the videotapes," Locke admitted. "Richard said that he knew where it was, and if I really insisted he'd take me there. He told me one thing: 'If we'd known what Dharma was doing before the fact, we'd never have agreed to the Truce at all.'"

"Because of their experiments?"

"Because of where they were digging.' Richard actually shuddered. 'If they'd drilled any deeper, they would've found something. Something so dangerous, it should never have been built in the first place."

"How long has it been there?"

"Long before I ever came here.' He was clearly unsettled by it. And considering what it took to scare that man, I let it go." Locke looked at them. "Considering what Olivia told us right before she left, I have a feeling that Dharma may have been right on top of whatever it was."

"Still doesn't tell us what it was," James asked.

"We all know what happened at the Swan. Before and after," Locke pointed out. "Part of thinks whatever was at the Orchid may have been even worse."

"It must have been something dangerous," Juliet said. "Ben and Richard were clearly keeping it secret from the rank and file."

Considering that Juliet had known about the Tempest and The Looking Glass, but nothing about the Orchid that said a lot.

"Well, I might be able to provide some answers that I couldn't," Daniel told them.

"When is this going to start making sense again?" Frank asked.

"We've been in this three years, we're still putting the pieces together," Kate reminded him. "Was Teresa able to give you any idea what the Orchid did? I resemble you showing us the icon in the notebook."

"It took ten minutes of trying to get her to focus on the equations rather than the symbols, but yes," Daniel admitted. "And if she was right, then I think this Richard might have been correct about not wanted anyone to know about it. From what you told us, the Orchid was supposed to be handling controlled experiments in time manipulation, which I have to tell you is a dangerous idea."

"Especially when you consider that based on the video, I'm not sure how 'controlled' it actually was," Locke told Dan.

"There was a pocket of energy there. The same principle as the one they were trying to find at the Swan station," Dan told them. "Only based on what Teresa read her, it could involve the manipulation of time. Which is dangerous enough in 'small' amounts. If it was done in a larger amount, it might have an effect on things much bigger."

Walt put into words what they all were thinking. "Like maybe the island?"

"It was over my head to say the least, but she said even in the best case scenario, this could 'dislodge' the island." Dan asked. "You asked if there was a way to move the island. I think that might be where it might be done."

"I'll admit all of this interesting – what I can understand of it," Frank said. "But none of this gets to the core of the issue. Who's after you now and why?"

"I think we can guess what the first part of it is," Jack told them. "What's left of the Dharma Initiative. Whether or not they're working in conjunction with some other force isn't clear, but I think we all can guess who they've been trying to use."

Hurley, of all people, had figured it out first. "The children."

"There's a certain genius to it," James admitted. "And considering that one of the reasons we all ended up on that rock in that first place was 'cause of our parents, there's a certain dramatic irony to it."

"You really are a writer now," Kate said, impressed.

"So Dharma's lined up with Abaddon now?" Frank said. "That doesn't make much sense, given who that guy worked for before."

"There are always strange bedfellows when you search for something," Penny said. "God knows how many allegiances these people will make to get what they want."

"And they are coming after you because they think you know where the island is," Frank said.

"That's one possibility." Locke told them. "Another possibility is they may think they need us to get to the island."

"Excuse me?" Frank said.

"Frank, you've been remarkably accepting so far, but you're going to need to take a deep breath here," Locke said slowly. "Because this part is actually going to make everything else you've been told seem sane." He looked at everybody – Jack in particular – and seeing no objections, he retold the story of what he had found at the lighthouse and the names on the wheel.

"You were right; that's even harder to believe," Frank admitted. "And this is coming from a guy who was supposed to fly your plane and ended up on the same island the survivors did."

"Unfortunately, this is where I have to put a certain burden on our new friends," Locke looked at Dan and Charlotte. "I've been holding off telling you this because I honestly wasn't sure it mattered before. It's not clear it does."

Dan and Charlotte held hands. "Our names were there," Charlotte said.

"Faraday was number 104. Lewis was 140." Locke hesitated. "Unfortunately, this is the part where I think things may start getting maddeningly vague."

Jack frowned. "I'm not sure I follow."

"I think Juliet would," Locke reminded them. "There were surnames on the wheel. And that can leave room for ambiguity."

Jin got it. "You weren't sure whether Kwon referred to me or Sun."

"And there's room for a lot of the names I saw." He looked at Claire. "Littleton was there. Now that could have referred to Aaron just as easily as you."

"I can't exactly argue that point," Claire said, thinking yet again of the psychic who had gotten her on the plane.

"Rousseau was number 20," Locke went on. "Now that could have been Danielle or Alex. And now given what we know about the Dharma Initiative, its just as likely that some of the names that were there could refer to parents as much as children."

"You saw the name Linus and you think it could be the father as much as the son," Sayid said thoughtfully.

Locke nodded and looked at Charlotte. "Lewis could mean you or anyone in your family. And last night, I tried to remember if there were any names on that list that could've been belong to Dharma. And one last name did come to mind."

"Who?" Jack asked.

"Goodspeed. It was an odd name so I remembered it. But now that I do, I have no idea who it could refer to. Horace, Olivia, Amy…"

"Or Ethan," Juliet said, thinking of her fellow physician.

None of them were entirely sure how to put the next part forward. Ethan had clearly defected from Dharma along with Ben at a very young age. But considering what Olivia had told them about who his parents were there was a potential he might actually be a bigger monster than Ben. It's one thing to kill your abusive father. It's another to have both your parents purged as part of what amounts to a coup d'état. And they all knew that one of the bodies that Locke had found in that pit had belonged to Horace Goodspeed.

"I always knew he was part of Dharma," Juliet said. "But all the years we talked, he said his last name was Rom, like he told the rest of you."

"Ben never said that he grew up with him," Sayid knew that Ben was a notorious liar, even among his own people but he had never been certain whether Ethan was the kind of person who would back up his leader's lies.

"Even if he didn't, Richard had to have known," Locke pointed out.

"And he didn't tell you about it?" Jack asked.

"Honestly, let's not try to clear up the character of a man who kidnapped me, hung Charlie and killed Scott," Claire, usually the most benign among them, was surprisingly blunt. Then again, of the group she had the most reason not to give a damn about Ethan's character.

"It's a moot point," Locke reminded them. "What I was getting at is in the case of some of those names, we'll never know for sure who was supposed to be on the island." Locke was trying very hard not to bring the name Jacob into this, partly because he didn't believe it mattered any more, partly because he really didn't want to freak out Dan and Charlotte, who were already nervous enough.

"But the guardianship of the island, that's no longer in flux," Desmond said.

"It's being protected from the forces on the inside. No one was ever doing a good job protecting from whatever came from the outside." Locke pointed out. "And even now, it doesn't change the fact that there are clearly still people who want to find the island and will use whatever means necessary to get it. And as they know, we're some of those people."

"Dude, please tell me we don't have to go back," Hurley said.

"I don't want that at all, and I don't think that's our responsibility." Locke said. "What is our responsibility is keeping each other safe. That means finding who these people are and what connection they have to Dharma."

"And for all the information we've gathered, we're still drawing a blank on that," Jack admitted.

An expression of disgust and horror appeared on Juliet's face. "Not entirely."

Sayid clearly knew what was going through her head. "Absolutely not."

"I don't deny it's a horrible idea. Just thinking about makes me want to vomit," Juliet admitted. "But if you're looking for someone who could give us answers…"

By now, it had dawned on everybody exactly who Juliet and Sayid were talking about, even Frank. "This would be an even bigger shitshow than the freighter mission ever was," he said with just a hint of anger.

"If anyone else has a better idea, I'm more than open to suggestions," Juliet pointed out. "But honestly, if you want to know someone who would have all the details about what the hell Dharma might be up to now, who better to ask than the man who helped bring them down in the first place?"

"None of us are denying the logic of the idea, Juliet," Locke seemed just as disgusted. "But all of us know that getting the truth from Ben wouldn't come cheap, assuming he was willing to give it at all."

"That's assuming the man is capable of telling the truth," Sayid reminded them.

Everyone seemed to be waiting for Jack to say something. Finally he spoke up. "We have to exhaust every other option first before we even consider it," he finally said.

"We're not even sure what those other options are," James, never a fan of Ben, couldn't help but remind him.

"Well, we better come up with some." Jack said. "The evidence is that at some point, we considered detonating a hydrogen bomb. We all know that Ben Linus is a far more deadly weapon. And just by trying to find him, that's going to have fallout none of us can begin to imagine."

Yes, the man we love to hate will be returning to the series. The question is not, can we trust Ben but will he even want to help?

Additional thoughts:

It does seem like an alternate timeline may exist. My biggest problem with the flash-sideways was that the end result basically negated a lot of what Dan in particular seemed to be reasoning out when he met up with Desmond in that world. I can't promise my explanation will make much more sense, but I'm going to try.

Walt's flash can be found in the third story in the series. He basically saw what happened in the final moments of The Incident. And a little child shall lead them.

We never could tell for certain about some of the names on the wall. Locke is now dealing with it directly.

So was Ethan a bigger monster than Ben? Yes, Ben killed his father but as much as he was softened in Season 5, you could get Ben's motives. Ethan, on the other hand, didn't seem to have any problem with letting his parents be killed as a matter of business and there's no evidence to suggest either Horace or Amy were terrible parents. Throw in the brief perception we got off an eleven year old Ethan just before Ben went to Rousseau's tents and you get the very strong possibility that Ethan was a serial killer in the making long before the plane ever crashed. Kind of makes you glad Charlie put six bullets in him.

Reviews and additional comments always welcome!