Nadia splashed water on her face and looked at her reflection in the mirror. She leaned on the sink and willed herself to stop shaking. Laurel had assumed she was frightened, but really, it was just shock. Nadia wasn't afraid of Sayid. But the thought that the life she had built with her daughter was about to change forever did give her pause.

She walked into the living room. She had asked Laurel if Yasmin could stay next door and have dinner with Grace. Laurel was happy to invite her, and Yasmin was thrilled. Nadia needed time to collectherself and she would rather Yasmin not be here when Sayid came back. She wanted tohandle this her wayShe was headed out to the kitchen for a glass of water when she heard the knock at the door. She knew she should answer it but she stood frozen in place until the knock came again, startling her. This time she managed to walk to the door and open it.

He was looking out toward the street, but turned when she said his name. They stared at each other for a long moment. He was struck by the sharp contrast between the two women who occupied all of his thoughts. Where Shannon was tall, all angles and sharp edges, looks were deceiving. Nadia was smaller, softer, and yet, he knew, stronger in many ways. Was she as strong as he remembered?.

She pushed the screen door open and stepped aside so he could come in. Everything seemed surreal. The sunlight coming in the door blinded her, and all she could hear was her own blood pounding in her ears. Nadia had imagined this moment a million times, but somehow it never happened in her living room. She watched his eyes wander, taking everything in. There were pictures of Yasmin on the bookshelf, and he walked over and picked one up.

"How old is she?" He asked.

"She's eight."

He looked again at the photograph and then his eyes met hers. "What is her name?"

Nadia sat on the arm of the chair. "Yasmin." She said.

Sayid repeated his daughter's name softly to himself.

Nadia fled to the kitchen. Sayid followed her. "I need a drink of water. Do you want anything? I could make some tea, or..." She stood at the sink with the water running. Why had she come out here?

He turned the water off and put his hand on her shoulder. "Nadia. Please. Sit down." He pulled out a chair and she sat at the table. She tucked her hair behind her ear and looked at him, then away.

"What is she like?"

Good. This she could do. "Yasmin? She's smart and stubborn. She's shy. She loves to read and ride her bike, and sometimes she won't listen to a word I say. She smiled. "She's curious, always asking questions about everything." Nadia looked at him. "Especially about her father."

Sayid took a deep breath, trying to absorb it all. "What do you tell her?"

"The truth. What she can understand of it." She started to get up. She needed to move, to do something, or she was going to scream. "Are you sure you don't want something? Let me make you a cup of tea or something to eat."

Sayid grabbed her hand. "Don't. Just sit here. Look at me, Nadia. Talk to me."

"I can't!" She pulled her hand away and walked to the window, turning her back on him.

"I gave up." She said softly. "I stopped believing I would ever see you again. After I left London..."

"You were in London?"

"Yes, that's where Yasmin was born."

"But I looked for you there. I went to all the mosques, asked everyone." How could he not have found her?

She sat back down across from him. "Sayid, I was pregnant with no husband. I couldn't go to the mosques. I couldn't go to those people. They would have turned me away, or worse."

"So, Where did you go?"

"Where did I go! What options did I have, Sayid? No family. No friends who would help me. I didn't know anyone. I didn't even know you."

"What do you mean you didn't know me?" He stared at her.

She got up and paced the tiny kitchen, her bare feet slapping the floor. "Don't look at me that way! How long had we been together? How well did we know each other? I felt stupid and naive. I was angry at myself for letting this happen. I was in a strange country. There was a doctor. He put me in touch with some people who wanted a child. I was going to give the baby up for adoption."

A shadow crossed his face. "You would have done that? Given away our child?"

Her eyes flashed. "Are you forgetting I was alone? How did I know you were looking for me! For all I knew you were dead, or didn't want to find me! I didn't have many choices."

He hadn't thought of that. Hadn't thought at all about how difficult it must have been, or how scared she was, or that she might have doubted him. "What made you change your mind?"

She sat back down and closed her eyes. "When she was born, and I held her, I couldn't do it. She was all I had of you. I wouldn't sign the papers, wouldn't let them take her."

She told him the rest of what happened with the couple and how she'd told the British authorities everything. " I was ashamed for a long time. I betrayed people who trusted me. I don't even know what happened to them." She waited for his reaction.

He didn't say anything. He knew from the island, from Claire and Michael, and even Danielle, just how far a parent would go to protect their child.

"I've done things I am ashamed of, too." He said. And he told her about Essam, and what he had done in Sydney, because of the promise of finding her.

Sometime during their confessions she had taken his hands in hers. Now they sat, not speaking, or needing to. He knew he would tell her about the plane crash, and the island, and Shannon at some point, but for now this was enough.

Nadia looked at him. He looked tired and confused, vulnerable in a way she had never seen him before Did he still love her? She had buried her ownlove for him so deep, so long ago. How could she blame him if he was so uncertain of his feelings he couldn't tell her what he wanted? Was there any part of their feelings for each other that could be salvaged?

"Where is she?" Sayid asked finally, looking up.

"Yasmin? She's next door. Laurel, the woman you talked to earlier, she's watching her for now. I know you want to see her, and I won't keep her from you; but I need to talk to her first."

"All right. When?" He understood the need to make this easier on the child

"I have to know that you aren't going to be in and out of her life, Sayid. I won't let her be hurt if I can help it. Can you understand that?"

"Yes."

"Where are you staying?"

"In the city. I need to get back." He knew the trains didn't run all night and he would have to leave soon. At the same time, he had the irrational fear that if he left now all of this, the relief of finding her, the sudden closeness between them, even the daughter he had yet to see, would disappear, just as it had eight years ago. Nadia was standing at the window again, and he walked over to her. He put his arms around her and pulled her close.

"I'm sorry. Sorry you were alone." He said. "Please believe I wanted to find you. I was searching for you everywhere."

"I know." She looked up at him, her eyes holding shadows of all she had been through, and more, a question.

Without thinking of the consequences, he kissed her. He meant the kiss to be quick and gentle, but then his body remembered this woman, her taste, her smell, the weight of her in his arms, all of Nadia he had forced himself to forget and instead it became deeper and more passionate. She pulled him closer, every inch of her pressed against him. Nothing existed outside of this kiss.