Someone was slapping his face.

"Dude!"

Charlie's eyes shot open, his hand reaching up to stop Hurley's hand before it connected with the side of his cheek again.

"Dude!!" Hurley said. "Hey, Jack I got him up!"

Charlie squinted against the sunlight as Hurley moved out of the way, and was replaced by the concerned faces of Jack and Kate.

"Charlie, are you all right?" Jack asked.

"Where's Claire?" he countered. He pushed himself up into a sitting position and moaned as the world swirled around him.

Jack sat back on his heels. "Take it easy, Charlie. You had a major blow to the head. Your heart rate is pretty fast, you've lost a lot of blood."

Secondary concerns, he thought crankily. "Where's Claire? Where's the baby?"

Kate put her hands on his shoulders and eased him back down to the ground. "We don't know, Charlie. Locke and some of the others are still out looking. Is there anything you can tell us about what happened?"

Jack took a damp rag and began to clean the jagged cut running from Charlie's right temple to nearly the middle of his forehead. Pain shot through him and Charlie lashed out. "That fucking hurts, Jack." A moment later two beefy hands wrapped around his wrists and held him down.

Hurley smiled down at him. "Just hold still, Charlie. Jack's gotta clean that cut on your head. You bled all over the place, man."

"Charlie, what happened?" Kate asked, her head bobbing into view over Hurley's shoulder.

"We were—oh, Jesus sodding Christ that stings. Claire—there was a woman. A Frenchwoman. I think . . . I think it was the same one we heard—" he broke off in cry as Jack administered to him.

Jack and Kate exchanged a brief glance. "Hurley, he needs stitches can you grab my bag, please?"

He nodded agreeably. "Sure, dude."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Six stitches later, Charlie lay on the floor of the cave, staring at the ceiling. Hurley stood guard by the door. Jack had instructed him to sit on Charlie if necessary to keep him still. With Charlie's input, Kate and Jack had pieced together what little they knew.

The Frenchwoman that had made the mysterious transmission was very much alive indeed. She had surprised Charlie and Claire while they were gathering fruit in the jungle, and attacked them with some kind of homemade taser made out of a metal pole and what Charlie thought had been a car battery. Charlie explained about waking up in the hut, overpowering the French woman, delivering the baby, and the shadowy figure who'd knocked him out. He left out Claire's bad trip, the searing kiss and the feeling of immense joy and pride he'd had at holding the tiny baby he'd helped deliver.

Kate and Jack informed him that Hurley had found him lying in the tall grass near the beach, several carnivorous birds already lurking about. There had been no sign of Claire or the baby.

Hurley tried to make conversation, but Charlie didn't feel like talking. He simply lay, staring at the ceiling, his mind racing with thoughts of poorly tied knots and a beautiful woman and her very perfect baby.

---------------------------------------------------

It was dusk when Charlie awoke. He glanced at the mouth of the cave and saw that Hurley had abandoned his post. Charlie stood, his legs wobbly. The world seemed to spin around him, and he clung to the wall for support. He stumbled to the mouth of the cave and poked his head out. Voices drifted over to him from the nearby fire.

"…don't know where she is… no sign of this hut either . . . Locke . . . . doesn't make sense . . . no one else on this island . . . maybe attacked . … animal . . .Charlie likes her . . . stress…"

Charlie slunk away, his eyes catching sight of Locke heading towards what had become his designated "cleaning" spot, boar in one hand and knife in the other.

"Teach me to hunt."

It was not a request.

Locke did not seem surprised by Charlie's presence. Although Locke's uncanny sense usually put Charlie at ease, this time it angered him. "I believe you, Charlie."

"Teach me to hunt."

"What for?"

"Because I need to find them, Locke."

Locke shook his head, tightening the knots that held the boar's feet together. "Jack says you're too weak, still." He looked Charlie square in the eye. "I saw you get up, Charlie. You can barely put one foot in front of the other." Locke tossed one end of the rope over a tree branch and then began hoisting the boar into the air. "Besides, there's nothing you can do that we're not doing already. There are search parties going out in teams."

"Search parties that think I made the whole thing up and she's been eaten by a polar bear. They're the same ones that thought that Claire was dreaming about someone trying to kidnap her and look what happened." Charlie paused. "You think she made it up, too, don't you?"

Locke tied the other end of the rope around the tree trunk. "I already told you I believe you, Charlie."

"Then why aren't you still out there looking like everyone else?"

Locke stood and drove one end of his knife into the center of the boar. "Because I'm cleaning a boar," he said simply.

"Claire could be dead, Locke. Dead. Never coming back. Her baby could be dead."

Locke worked the knife into the boar's flesh, carefully stripping the skin away. "She's not dead, Charlie."

"How do you know that?"

"Because you were returned. Why would you kidnap someone and hold them hostage for days if you simply intended to kill them?"

Charlie fumed. "You don't understand. This woman—she's not right in the head."

"Charlie's right," a heavily accented voice offered. Charlie turned to see Sayid leaning against the trunk of a tree. "I think Danielle is disturbed."

Charlie stared. "Sayid? I thought you had left."

Sayid nodded. "I did. I only returned this afternoon. When I heard about you and Claire, I assumed it was Danielle."

"Danielle?"

"The Frenchwoman," he said simply. Charlie's eyes shot to Locke, who had paused in cleaning the boar.

"I already know, Charlie." Somehow that doesn't surprise me, Charlie fumed.

"Danielle was part of a research team that was shipwrecked here years ago," Sayid. "She has been on this island ever since."

Charlie paused. "Research team," he said cautiously. "What happened to the other researchers?"

Sayid's face went ashen and he looked away. Charlie's breath caught, and a sudden chilling fear swept over him. "Sayid, what happened to the other researchers?"

When Sayid looked at him now, it was with regret. "She killed them."