Chapter 14

Everyone was relatively certain that the people who were searching for the island had to either know about the Lamppost or would be looking for it at some point. So a group of the Oceanics had elected to go back to Los Angeles to stand guard.

Desmond and James had volunteered immediately but both were a little stunned when Dan had asked to come with them. Everybody expected the violence to start very soon and given Dan's nature they expected that he'd wanted to stay behind the scenes. The explanation that he had given – that he thought he was a lot closer to understanding how the station worked more than anybody else – was plausible but at this stage no one was completely sure anybody did anything without an ulterior motive.

So when they had arrived at the church and were told by the guards that Penny had posted that an old woman had gone in the front door half an hour ago had been praying, the question that both Desmond and James had for Dan was: "Did you know she'd be here?"

"I won't pretend to understand anything my mother has ever done," Dan had told them. "But based on what I've learned the past several months I know she puts the well-being of the island above everything else. If she knows that its danger, she'll do anything to protect it. Which means coming here."

"Do you think she'll answer our questions?" James asked.

Desmond scoffed. "That's the last thing she'll bloody do. But at least she can't hide from them any more."

Now, for the first time in more than ten years, Dan was in the same room as his mother. The woman who had made his life so miserable for so long that he had decided to break off all ties. Now he knew some of her secrets and he was determined to get answers.

"Hello, Daniel," Eloise said slowly. "I'm glad to see everything has worked out."

"I'm not," Daniel said calmly. "Frankly I could have lived the rest of my life without ever having to see you."

"You may find this hard to believe, but I never thought I'd see you again either," Eloise said with just the slightest hint of remorse. "It was one of the sacrifices I made when I left the island."

"Is that why you never loved me?" Dan asked. "You know I never understood why you spent all my childhood pushing me so hard. Now I understand. You were pushing me there."

"I had to, Daniel. It was your path."

"If you say one more sodding word about destiny or fate, I'll bloody shoot you myself," Desmond said angrily. "Because I know you're full of it."

"I'm sorry, Desmond, I truly am," Eloise said. "But some times events have to play out the way they're supposed too."

"I believed you once, and it cost me almost four years of my life," Desmond told her. "If there's one thing all of us can agree on, it's that we hate being moved around like pieces in a game we don't know the bloody rules of."

"And yet here you are," Eloise said with the impenetrable calm. "Right back on their doorstep."

"You don't know how many times I just wanted to see if I could blow the dam on this one just like the Swan," Desmond said casually.

"But you didn't. Because you knew you might need it someday."

"No. We remember what happened the last time," James spoke up for the first time. "Thought the sky turning purple might bring the wrong kind of attention to this place and to us. See that's the thing about Scotty that you wouldn't understand. He cares about other people."

Eloise's demeanor slipped a little. "There are sacrifices one has to sometimes make to a greater purpose."

"See, I've heard that line before." James said calmly. "I don't know why I'm shocked. Maybe you patented it when you were in charge."

That got a look of surprise from Eloise. "Who told you?"

"I couldn't understand how anyone could love Charles Widmore," Desmond said. "But based on what we know, maybe you never did."

"That's what you were really pushing me towards all my life," Daniel said. "Why? Because it was in my DNA?"

"I realize you'll never understand this Daniel," Eloise was speaking almost as if by rote, "but all my life I was pushing you for a very important reason."

"To make you proud of me," Dan said disdainfully.

Eloise shook her head. "All my life I thought things had to happen a certain way. That's what I was taught since I was a very young girl. That everybody had a path. That's why I pushed you so hard. I was hoping that somehow I was wrong."

"More double talk," Desmond shook his head.

Daniel reached into his vest and removed the journal. Eloise seemed to sink internally when she saw it. "I could have lived a thousand lives without ever seeing that cursed thing again."

"Where did this come from?" Dan demanded.

"A place that doesn't exist any more," Eloise said reluctantly.

"How could I have written all of these things?"

"Because you always knew them."

"Shit Mary Poppins, we don't have time for this of back and forth," James said angrily. "People you don't like are coming for us because they're coming for the island. Now I seriously doubt you give a shit about anybody but if you're like everybody else who lived on that damn rock you care immensely about what happens to it. So stop talking like a damn Other and tell us what we need to know!"

"You act as if I know everything," Eloise said slowly.

"You bloody well seemed too when we first met," Desmond spouted.

"I did…then," Eloise said. "For a very long time everything followed the path it was supposed to take. Then people started to deviate from it. Small ripples becoming waves. And then I realized that the picture I had of the future wasn't written in stone any more than anything else had been."

"Let me guess. When I walked out on you at the restaurant," Dan said firmly.

"You might not believe me, Daniel, but I was never prouder of you then I was at that moment," Eloise said softly.

Dan had never heard his mother sound that moved. But he knew too much about her now to take anything she said at face value. "You're right. I don't. And in any case I'm well past the point of needing your approval or your permission for anything."

It must have been a trick of the light. Daniel could swear he saw a tear running down his mother's cheek. "Just promise you're not here because you're going there," Eloise asked.

"You speak as if you weren't pushing me there my entire life," Daniel indicated the book. "This journal is proof of that."

"I was pushing you there because I thought I had too. Because I thought that it was your path. But the fact that you managed to turn against it demonstrates that whatever rules I lived my life by were an illusion made up long ago. That maybe everything I thought I believed in was a lie."

Dan had never heard his mother so utterly unsure of herself and that robbed him of his ability to speak. Desmond was nowhere as reticent. "What does that journal mean?"

"I never understood any of the science in it. The only reason I kept it all these years was because I thought some day Daniel would need it." Eloise held up her hand. "I realize that I have no right to ask you anything Desmond, but I'm begging you. Never make me reveal how I got that journal in the first place. Just let me say that it was because something impossible happened that led me to do something I thought I could never take back…until this moment."

There were implications here that even those who had been on the island didn't understand and perhaps in this case never wanted too. "Then let's keep it simple, Granny," James said. "You know the reason we're here?"

"Yes." Eloise admitted.

"Do you know who those people are?"

"Once they were aligned with Daniel's father." Eloise said. "Their mission has not changed since he was imprisoned."

"Do they know about this place?" Desmond asked.

"They never needed to come here to use it," Eloise said. "The calculations and records it makes have always been connected to the home office."

"Which I'm guessing is somewhere outside of Ann Arbor," James said.

"The university may have removed any evidence of its existence. That doesn't mean they got rid of every trace of it."

"Let's be clear," Daniel seemed to have recovered. "This station was designed to locate where and when the island will next appear. Judging by their actions they know when the next window is going to open."

Eloise looked at her son with what might have been pride. "It has to be done very precisely. The Dharma Initiative may have been able to locate the island before with science but they never would have been able to get there at all if there hadn't been people who were supposed to be there, even if they didn't know it."

Everybody in the group either knew or suspected this but it still came as a shock to hear it stated so simply. "And these people can't get there on their own. They need help," James said. "Which is why they're gathering the people who came back."

"And according to their readings, in exactly five days that window closes," Eloise told them.

"Can't we just kill the clock until the window shuts?" James asked.

"You're assuming these people will take losing gracefully," Eloise said. "Ever since you and your friends came back they've known the secret you were keeping. They haven't done anything to touch you because you've been prominent with the alliances you've made. They thought it would be too big a risk. If this window closes and they're not on the island then they'll have no need for patience. One by one, you'll all disappear and then die."

"Charles didn't react that way when we came back," Desmond said.

"Charles is a horrid man but he has patience," Eloise reminded them. "And he had enough resources and power to keep them in check. I know you have no love for him, but they'll kill him too."

Daniel asked the question that they wanted answered most. "Who are these people and why do they want the island?"

"The Hanso family has always had some kind of connection with the island that no one can understand," Eloise said. "Ever since Magnus Hanso went mad while commanding The Black Rock and somehow sailed his ship to the island in 1867, his descendants have been obsessed with finding out why he disappeared and what brought him there. They've built an empire around it. The Dharma Initiative was founded because of it. But for nearly a century and a half, they've never wanted to go there themselves. Maybe because they know how dangerous it truly can be to even look for it."

Eloise looked at them. "I never understood why Charles would make contact with them or any of the alliances he made when he was off-island. There was always something in him that was never satisfied with serving. The island was something that he thought was his." She looked at her son. "Maybe that's the only reason we were together all those years." He turned to Desmond. "It's not like he was ever capable of love. But somehow he made those alliances and he made his fortune. I don't even think the money mattered to him. I think to him it was just a means to an end."

"'With enough money and determination you can find anything'" It had been moving when Penny had said those words to Desmond six years ago. For the first time he wondered where she learned it – and how she'd learned to use it for a different purpose than her father.

"I don't know who assembled them – Charles or the Hansos. But no alliance can hold forever and in a way he was holding him back. My husband just wanted the island for himself. These people – they're not satisfied with that." Eloise told them. "That's why they have to be stopped."

"You've painted a picture. Now frame it. What will they do if they get there?" James said with his old bluntness.

"The experiments that the Dharma Initiative did were dangerous. You witnessed the consequences of one of them." Eloise looked at Desmond "I know you didn't want to believe, but I saw 'the Incident' and just how disastrous it was with professionals involved. You needed to turn that fail-safe key or the consequences would have been worse than anything you were told."

"And when they get there, they'll start them up again," Desmond said.

"Only to them, it will mean nothing no matter how many lives they have to sacrifice in order to harness the power of the island. And that's still not the worst thing. If by chance they managed to find what it's truly capable of…"

She looked at them. "God help us all."

SEATTLE

ONE HOUR LATER

The Shephard living room had been turned into a miniature control center. Everybody had basically gathered either making phone calls or waiting for more information to come in.

Jack was handling the lion's share of the calls. Out of concern for his wife's safety he had gone back into the role of leader that he had never liked while on the island but had always been loathe letting go of. No one objected given the circumstances.

Juliet walked over to him. "They just finished talking with her," she told them.

"How's Dan doing?" Jack asked. "On top of everything else this can't have been the ideal situation to see his mother again."

"Desmond wasn't exactly overjoyed either," Juliet admitted. "He said even knowing who she was it took all his restraint to not walk over and snap her neck."

"Dan might not have objected that much given what we know," Jack tried to shake off what he said. "Did she have any additional information? Besides what she told us before."

"I think if she'd known anything else she would've told them," Juliet said. "From what Desmond told me she was devoted to two ideas: destiny and keeping her son alive. She doesn't believe in the first any more, so she focused real hard on the center."

"I guess, better late than never," Alex piped up.

Sayid walked over. "Widmore still won't talk."

It was a measure of their level of desperation that Penny was willing to talk with her father who she hadn't spoken to for two years prior to his incarceration. But as had always been the case, her pleas to her father fell on deaf ears. He hadn't even been willing to see her and had delivered a message telling her that if she made any further efforts to contact him again, he would arrange to have himself 'transferred' from the British Supermax he'd been residing in for the past two years.

"The man's serving consecutive life sentences! How the hell does he think he's in a position to negotiate?" Izzie asked incredulously.

"The crimes he was sentenced for were only the top of his wrongdoing," Sayid told them. "Ever since he was sent to prison, law enforcement agencies from all over the world have been offering him sentence reductions and better conditions if he'd be willing to testify to his fellow conspirators. Until now he had remained silent."

"And given everything that's happening now, he must think that moving to an undisclosed location under the cover of more law enforcement would be an upgrade," Jack shook his head. "I don't know whether he's being loyal, conspiring or just plain crazy."

"He's associated with the island, Jack. All three simultaneously are not impossible," Juliet said with a small smile.

Callie looked at Hurley. "Was this what it was like for you on the island? This massive amount of confusion for reasons you could never really understand?"

"Yeah, but most of the time we didn't even try to follow the plot," Hurley said. "Part of it was, you know, struggling for survival but honestly there was just so much going on that by the time we got one answer, we'd getting maybe ten more questions to follow it."

Alex shook his head. "I don't know how you guys held it together. Iz and I have been dealing with just like, a fraction of this, in civilization and I gotta tell you, it's seriously fucking with my head."

"That's not easy for you to say. You're not getting instructions from dead people," Izzie said.

"You get used to that," Jack said automatically.

Everybody looked at him. "Or you know, you bury it in the back of your head, follow a ghost through the middle of the jungle until you find your father's empty coffin and you smash it to pieces."

They considered this. "Still simpler than psych," Izzie said with a shrug.

Claire walked in. "Is he here?" Jack asked.

She nodded. "I know we've all made our promises but I need to hear it one more time.

There was a pause. Sayid finally spoke up. "There's a reason they're not here," he told Claire.

"I didn't really expect them to change their minds. But everyone else. Even you?"

"I've made my peace with it. As much as I can," Sayid said.

Claire nodded. "You can come in now."

Ben walked in. If ever there was a time for Darth Vader music its now. Even Hurley was tactful enough to say what he thought.

None of the survivors were willing to admit how much it did their hearts good to see Ben, who had always seemed in complete control, look awkward and uncertain of his words. No one went out of their way to make him feel welcome though.

It made a certain amount of sense that the only person who hadn't met Ben finally spoke up. "This is as awkward for us as it is for you," Callie said.

"Awkward isn't exactly the word," Jin said to Sun in Korean.

"I realize that most of you would have been happy to never see me again," Ben said slowly. "I know earning your trust has been difficult, and your forgiveness is probably impossible. Claire made that more than clear when she convinced me to help you."

No one said anything to contradict him. As dire as the situation was, a dark part of all the survivors – and for that matter everyone who knew the story – wanted to make this as difficult for Ben Linus as possible. None of them thought it was possible for Ben to grovel, but all of them wouldn't have minded him trying.

"Perhaps it was a mistake for me to come here," Ben said.

"The problem is Ben, your superpower was lying," To hear Hurley of all people say this may have been the biggest shock of all. "I'm not saying, like, everything you ever told us was a lie, but when you use a dead man's name as your secret identity for the first week you know and then keep using after we know it's a lie, that takes a level of commitment that I'd have been impressed by if your people weren't, you know, trying to eat us."

No one had ever heard Hurley say something that negative about anybody in public. Hurley loved everybody and everybody loved Hurley. Ben was clearly floored by it.

"It wasn't personal, Hugo," Ben began.

"Then why'd you take me?"

A look of confusion momentarily overcame Ben's face. "I didn't –"

"You sent Michael to get four people. The only ones you needed were Kate, Jack and Sawyer. One of your people told me that my job was to tell everybody else not to come for them. Something that you had to know we wouldn't do." The look of hurt on Hurley's face was undeniable. "Michael had to convince me to get revenge on the people who killed Libby. They had to make me bring a gun. And after all that, you just sent me back like I was trash. You could've gotten anyone else to do that. Jin or Charlie or anyone. Why'd it have to be me?"

Ben's face actually seemed to be contorting as he tried to come up with a plausible excuse. Finally he gave up. "People believed you. We – I thought that if you said it, if you were as badly shaken by this as we thought, they might listen."

Hurley got to his feet. Everyone knew he wasn't threatening but given his size you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. "Michael doesn't want to see you," he finally said.

"I don't blame him for that," Ben admitted.

"I forgave him, you know," Hurley told him. "For killing Libby. And using it to motivate me. Took me a long time to get there, but I did. I don't hate people. Doesn't do you any good. And hearing, you know, your backstory, I kind of get why you were what you were. So I don't really hate you any more. I don't exactly like you yet, but I'm getting there."

No one else was quite shocked to hear that. Hurley had always been the kind of man who would have compassion even for his enemies – which assumed of course, someone could hate him in the first place. Everyone else – even Claire – wasn't there yet.

It did, however, mean a lot for him to say that. Ben knew that. Jack looked at him, heaved a sigh and told him what Eloise had just let them in on.

"Did you ever know her?" Claire asked.

"I only knew of her," Ben said. "By the time I was officially recruited she had left the island. Widmore took over her position, I assumed because she gave him some kind of approval."

"Did you know they had a child together?" Juliet asked.

A look of genuine astonishment overcame Ben's face. "No. But Charles never cared much for fatherhood as a concept. I assume she left to give birth and raise him."

"After a fashion." That was all Claire was willing to say and Ben let it go.

"The people on the lists you gave us," Jack said quietly. "She did confirm that Widmore's people are involved and that they plan to return to the island. How, we still don't know, but according to her we have less than five days to stop them."

Izzie interjected. "Do we have any idea why they're after our friends?"

Jack chose to answer this one. "The easy answer is that they need doctors. The Dharma Initiative clearly needed them and I'm guessing that's one of the reasons you tried so hard to recruit Juliet. Though strictly speaking, I think she –and really the island – would have been better served if you'd gone after a general practitioner."

Wonders of wonders, Ben chose not to argue the point. "It was never particularly easy to recruit people to the island. Getting scientists was tricky enough; doctors almost impossible. They do seem to be putting thought when it comes to bringing an entire team."

"It still seems random," Alex told him. "A pediatric surgeon and a neurosurgeon make sense and O'Malley has chosen a trauma specialty. But what good is a plastic surgeon going to do somewhere where cuts and bruises and don't leave scars?"

"Plastic surgeons are called in on traumas," Callie said thoughtfully. "That might be why they need them. It doesn't explain why they'd talk an intern though."

"Because they're not planning on coming back," Ben said bluntly. "And in case something should go wrong, they need someone who can be trained."

"Is he always that brusque?" Callie asked Alex.

"Actually, it's one of his better qualities," Alex admitted.

"All of this only works if they're going voluntarily," Sun said carefully. "Every indication Dr. Robbins was all but taken off the street."

"I assume you've gotten in contact with her family," Ben asked Jack.

"Carefully," Jack told them. "Apparently she called them two days before she disappeared to tell them that she was going on sabbatical from the hospital for a few months and would be out of reach. Her father was ex-military and one of her brothers is in the marines, so they assumed it was something like that. That being said, they're doing a lousy job of covering it up with the hospital."

"'I don't assume that I have control over events, but I confess at times they have control over me'". Everyone looked at Ben. "Lincoln. When Charles' people and whoever's left with the Hanso Foundation got involved, they must have known at some point they would no longer have control over their operation. As soon as we got involved, that event changed how they did things."

"Are we back to talking about destiny again?" Jack wasn't exactly thrilled to hear this.

"We're surgeons, Jack, we should understand that better than anybody," Izzie spoke up. "A surgery may take place in the best hospital, have the best surgeons on the table, your patient may be in the best possible condition, and you may perform the surgery perfectly. They might pick up a post-op infection, the nurse might hand you the wrong instrument," she looked right at him, "you might slash the dural sac just as you're closing them up. We're taught as surgeons going in that you lose more than you save. I'd think you of all people might be able to understand that particular line."

Everybody in the room – even Ben – was impressed at how succinctly Izzie had just put the kibosh on the idea that being a man of science still might not lead to the right result.

"If John had ever put things in those terms, do you think the two of you would have fought so much?" Sun asked Jack.

"He wouldn't have known the terms to use," Jack said slowly. "But even if he had I probably still wouldn't have listened. It's the person I was back then. Still it's a good point."

He turned to Ben. "You have any idea who's in charge of these people?"

"If it isn't Widmore, then I have no clear idea who the leader is," Ben admitted. "We have to proceed as if they're pursuing one strategy. Get everyone together and get to the island."

"And how would they do that?" Jin asked.

"Hawking says there's a window. That's means they have some place to go as well as a time to be there," Ben reminded them. "Did she fill in that particular detail?"

'Jack looked at his sister who then looked at Juliet. She reached into her pocket.

"Wait a moment."

Sayid had not said a thing since Ben had entered the room. His face still bore the stoic expression it had since he'd entered but everybody knew it was as much a mask as Ben's was. The expression, however, could barely cover the incredible rage they all knew had to be just below the surface.

Wisely Ben remained quiet even as Sayid closed the distance between them.

"I know what you're going to say, Sayid," Ben said slowly. "Claire and Juliet have already made threats if I was to deceive them and I know all too well what you're capable of if I were to do the same. And I'm painfully aware that there's nothing I can do or say to convince you that I don't have my own agenda or to prove my loyalty."

Sayid looked dead into Ben's eyes. "If I had treated you the way Claire had –used kindness – would you have told the truth?"

Ben didn't have to ask what he was referring to. "It wouldn't have made a difference. I'd committed to my role and I was going to stick to it no matter what."

Sayid looked at him for a long moment. "That's the first thing you ever told me that wasn't a lie."

"Now let me ask you a question. If you had found me in Rousseau's net without her telling you I was one of them, would you have done things any differently?"

Sayid didn't blink either. "It probably would have taken a little longer to get there, but no."

"That doesn't make me feel any better." Ben told him.

Sayid's expression flickered for the briefest of moments. "Nor I."

"The problem Sayid, and you're not going to feel any better hearing this from me, is that we're two sides of the same coin," Ben told him. "You told me that you were a torturer. So am I. Alex, Isabel and Juliet spent the better part of the last two days reminding of the psychological damage I did to Juliet and pretty much everyone else I've known in my entire life. I spent all my time on the island feeling like an outsider, even when I was in charge. You can't expect me to believe you didn't spend much of your life feeling the same way."

"Why should I believe you're not just trying to manipulate me right now?" Sayid asked.

"Because nothing will ever convince you otherwise," Ben told him. "I already know forgiveness or earning your trust because of my previous actions with everybody else is very difficult. I suspect in your case it may be impossible. All that I ask for now is that given the current crisis you consider me a resource. One that you can use to protect yourselves and the people you care about. Once the crisis is over… we went three years without seeing each other. I think you can go at least that long without having to think about me again."

Sayid remained silent for another minute. No one dared press him. Finally he looked at Juliet. "You believe him?"

"I have more reasons not to, but yes I do," Juliet said.

Another long minute passed before Sayid finally nodded.

Juliet removed a piece of paper. "They appear to be geographic coordinates," she told Ben. "Latitude and longitude. We checked online, they roughly correspond with Fiji."

Ben looked at them. "They tried a boat last time and it didn't work out very well. M y guess is they'll try either a submarine or an airplane."

"Well if it's the latter it's not like we'll have much luck tracking it down," Sayid said slowly. "Then again based on what we know about Dharma, that's probably where they got the submarine in the first place."

"It worked for Dharma for more than twenty years. I can see them probably having it in reserve," Ben said slowly. "That said especially given the international situation I can't imagine anybody willingly getting on a submarine."

"Even given what happened to our plane," Sun said carefully.

"From what I understand there were extenuating circumstances," Ben reminded them.

Jack had gone still. "What if the pilot was also supposed to be there?"

All the survivors got it. Everyone else – including Ben –looked blank. "What are you thinking?" Izzie asked.

"Lapidus," Jack closed his eyes. "He was supposed to fly our plane. Maybe they think if he's at the controls, there'll be a safe landing."

Ben was on alert. "Have they reached out to him already?"

"We're not that slow on the uptake, Benjamin," Sayid said. "We reached out to him when this began and he told us people have been. We told him to keep safe and he can take care of himself—"

"But he might not have a choice in the matter," Juliet got on the phone.

"James, please tell me you haven't left LA yet."

LOS ANGELES

TWENTY MINUTES LATER

Desmond got off the phone. "Frank was piloting a 737 from a company called Ajira out of Tokyo two days ago. He's got back on a return flight less than eight hours ago."

"Where to?" James asked.

"LAX. It's due in approximately four hours." Desmond said.

"Great. He's in danger and we can't even get a message to him," James said angrily.

"Right now the best thing we can do is get out there and make damn sure we meet him when he disembarks," Desmond said. "Good thing we happened to have some pull around airports."

Daniel looked at his mother. "Do you know if he's a target?"

"If they're trying to find the island, they're going to need every possible way to recreate conditions that would get them there." Eloise told them. "That's why they're getting so many people from Dharma. I'm frankly surprised they haven't made any more direct attempts to get to anyone from their flight considering that's the last recorded one to make it to the island."

"Frank Lapidus was supposed to be flying it," James reminded them. "Maybe they think he saved the original flight plan."

"They've reached out to him before," Eloise said. "They've probably been following him for weeks. It wouldn't surprise me if there were someone on his plane right now."

AJIRA 476

SOMEWHERE OVER THE PACIFIC

A man of Asian descent walked into the bathroom and removed a pen. He unscrewed the top of it and began to remove some pieces of plastic that he had managed to get through customs.

In less than two minutes, he had assembled a miniature makeshift gun.

Calmly he walked back to his seat. Just as he sat down, the plane underwent some turbulence. One of the fight attendants instructed him to buckle his seat belt.

"Thank you, my friend," he said as he looked at his watch.

AUTHOR'S NOTES

Desmond and Daniel finally get to confront the woman who did so much to destroy their lives. Eloise Hawking was an interesting character who never got much dimension in any flashes. I hoped to give her a little backing here.

Does the revelation as to the fact that the Hansos are behind this come as a letdown? Then I guess I'm doing my job right. Far too many Lost revelations seemed disappointing even when they made sense.

Eloise was at the Lamppost. I couldn't resist.

If you haven't figured it out the doctors have now become the viewers of Lost as well as helping.

Of course Hurley made the Star Wars reference. Couldn't help it.

Was Hurley too harsh on Ben? Considering how things ended on the series I thought Hurley may be too unforgiving here. But it did take the world almost ending for Hurley to completely work through it.

Why did the Others make Michael bring Hurley to them if his job was to tell no one to come find the rest? I still don't have a clear answer more than fifteen years later. Perhaps the Others saw Hurley's psych profile and did think that way.

My guess is at some point Christian did give advice along the lines of Izzie's (probably before the surgery we saw in jack's second flashback in Season 2) and Jack just chose to ignore it. Maybe coming from someone with less baggage than him giving the same advice will have more merit.

Sayid and Ben in the same room and no one gets hurt. Kind of remarkable. Maybe they have grown a lot in the last three years

I think some of you may know who the assassin is by those two last words. Let's just say he's another character we met in Season 5 who had potential and then was dispatched too quickly. You'll get to know him (again) in the next chapter.

Maybe I will be able to finish this story in one shot. Who knows? I still have way too much fun writing for this fandom. Read and review!