This chapter is dedicated to three readers who have continued to be here with me: yas-m, emerson123 and MorningGlory2. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Jack parallel-parked across the street from the address that Faraday gave him. They were in the shadiest part of town, where being carjacked was the very least of someone's problems. Jack scoped out the front of the building, rather disappointed that this was their destination. The address was for a bar, a rickety sign that read 'Lucky's Tavern' was placed above the solitary door that acted as the entrance and exit. The paint of the sign was both cracking and peeling from old age, abandonment. The place couldn't have much business, for the lack of cars in front of it, and its shoddy appearance, but not much this side of town looked appealing on the outside anyway.

Jack looked over at Faraday, who sat in the passenger seat, staring in the same direction. "This is it?"

Faraday simply nodded. "Yep."

"The most qualified man to fly me to the Island is in there?" Jack asked, bemused.

"Lets hope so." Faraday said as he opened the car door, hopping out. He remembered this as the only place he hung out in. If he wasn't here, then there was a very fat chance of finding him at all.

"His name is Frank Lapidus." Faraday said as they crossed the street. "He used to work for my mother as her personal pilot, would fly her all over the world. He's the best pilot I've ever seen man a cockpit."

They both entered the dark, shadowy bar, with no patrons in the booths or barstools. Nothing was animated about the place, except for the television that sat high above the bar. It was turned to the baseball game, the Red Sox versus those damn Yankees. A man sat at the edge of the bar; drink in hand, a small tray nearby for the ash of his cigarette to fall into, grumbling at the television when a Rex Sox player hit a grand slam, all bases loaded, and the game heading into a tie in the eighth inning. The swear words coming from the man's mouth were both hilarious and terrifying, his tight Brooklyn accent bringing an immediacy to his threats. Obviously a passionate Yankee fan, enough to bleed crimson blue until his dying day, Jack presumed, as he thought it best to keep his Red Sox obsession a well-kept secret.

"That'd be Frank." Faraday said, watching as his old friend guzzled from a short glass.

Once they got closer, Frank's appearance came into full view. His hair was long, uncombed, rather tangled, sprinkled with grey coloring and his beard and mustache were the same texture and color. He wore winkled jeans with a crumpled, collared, open button-up, the palm tree patterns completely contrasted with the gloomy atmosphere. The dirty tank he wore underneath it covered his chest hair. He brought his glass to his mouth again, downing the alcohol.

"Frank?" Faraday said by way of greeting, stepping in closer.

"Who the hell wants to know?" Frank barked as he kept his eyes glued to the TV screen, taking in a puff of his cigarette and then tapping it on the edge of the ash tray.

"Daniel, Daniel Faraday."

Frank turned to him, his eyes bulging in the dimly-lit space. "Dan?" His voice came out softer, endearing almost.

Faraday smiled, not sure of how he would react to seeing him again. "Hey Frank. It's been a long time."

Frank offered his hand and Faraday took it, shaking it. "Two years as a matter of fact. How ya been?"

"Good, good." Faraday replied. They both were smiling at this point, until Frank noticed Jack, who was standing away from the moment "Who's your friend?"

"This is Jack Shephard. Jack, this is Frank Lapidus." Faraday said, gesturing towards Frank.

Jack extended his hand. "Nice to meet you." Frank, not really one to trust easily, looked at Jack's hand suspectingly before he took it, shaking it roughly.

"Likewise." He said, suddenly very suspicious as to why Dan was here and why he brought someone along with him. "So, Danny Boy, what brings you down to my bar?"

"This is your bar now?" Faraday asked with a small laugh.

Frank beamed proudly. "Yep, won it in a poker game." It wasn't much, that he would and could admit, but it was his, that's all he knew and cared about now that a new career was in order. "So, again, what brings you to Lucky's?"

Faraday approached the bar's ledge and leaned into it on one folded arm, facing Frank. "I need a favor."

Frank let out a hoarse chuckle. "Your kind of favors have a high interest rate, Dan." He looked over at Jack and back to Faraday while he puffed on the edge of his cigarette, tapping it against the ash tray again. "Why don't I just give you and your friend here an open tab? All the alcohol you're willing to one day pay for."

"You know I don't drink, Frank." Faraday reminded him.

"Well, you should." Frank said with more laugher in his voice. "You're too wet behind the ears, Danny Boy. Always doing what that witch you call a mother tells you to. Man, am I happy I quit that circus."

Faraday, while he knew it was true, cocked his head violently at Frank's insult. His mother wasn't the warmest person on the planet. She was a bonafide Ice Queen to pretty much everyone she knew, but as her son, he was the only one who knew a softer side, one he had to fight to learn about, but was there nonetheless. They had their issues, but she was his mother and he wanted to be here, he wanted to help. His involvement was his idea.

Instead of beating around the bush, Faraday got to the point. "I found a job for you, Frank, as a pilot."

Frank looked into his friend's eyes, that glazed over stare was now a blazing hot fire. His voice took a turn from playful to serious. "Now, you know damn well I haven't flown a plane since I flew you and the rest of those geeks to that Island where they were all murdered."

He brought his glass up to his mouth and didn't take a sip until after he finished his thought. "You would have been just like 'em had I not gotten you out of there."

"Wait a minute." Jack spoke up from beside them, confronting Faraday about the revelation. "This is the pilot that flew you to the Island?"

Frank barked over his shoulder, defensively. "Yeah, I am. What's it to you?

"Okay, Frank. Listen to me." Faraday pleaded, trying to calm him down. "I wouldn't ask if it wasn't absolutely necessary, but I need you to do it again."

Frank laughed hysterically, shaking his head as he lowered it over the surface of the bar. He looked over at Faraday, his eyes still burning hot, but dimmer, still holding on to the idea that this was some prank that someone was playing on him.

"I must be drunker than I thought, because I know I didn't hear you ask me to fly to that hell hole you call a science project, where you were almost killed, by the way." He pointed out ardently.

Faraday nodded, keeping his eyes on him to prove his earnestness. "That's exactly what I'm asking you to do."

Frank stood up from the barstool rather quickly, glass in hand, almost toppling over on wobbly legs, but finding his balance. He whipped around, staring Faraday down between the squint of his eyes, offended. "Why the hell would you ask me to do something like that? You got a death wish? After what almost happened to you the last time, you—"

"I'm not the one who needs to go back." Faraday interrupted him. In that moment, Frank realized just why Faraday had brought Jack along.

"Who, then? This guy?" Frank gestured towards Jack with the hand that held his glass, alcohol spilling to the hardwood floor. "You think I'm risking my neck for some stranger? Why the hell would I do that?"

"Because there was a plane crash, Frank," Faraday said calmly, garnering all of his attention. The indignant, combative position he took dissipated into interest. "Over two-hundred passengers and only about forty survived."

Frank stepped back a little, blown away by the news. "A commercial flight, huh?"

"Yeah. It was coming from Sydney, Australia and was supposed to land at LAX, but it never did." Faraday explained. "This crash happened about four months ago, and these people have been stuck on that Island ever since." Frank bowed his head, saddened by the news, but still not all there. Jack looked over to Faraday, who shrugged, not sure what Frank would do or say next.

Instantly, recognition lit within Frank's features. He squeezed his eyes closed, trying to jumpstart his now drunken memory. "Wait a second." He rubbed at his head as he walked over to Faraday, his drink still dripping from his glass. "Four months ago. Are you talking about Oceanic Flight 815?"

Jack and Faraday shared a look of wonder and bafflement. How could he possibly know this? Jack spoke up, infatuated with learning more. "Does that flight mean anything to you?"

Frank looked over to Jack, his demeanor softer, shaky, but dead certain. "You damn right it does. I was supposed to pilot that flight." It was Jack's turn to take a few steps. He couldn't believe what a small world it was becoming. He swiped a hand over his mouth, in a state of pure confusion, which wasn't new for him at all, not these days.

"Why didn't you?" Jack had to ask.

Frank shrugged, his voice slurred again, tired, and embarrassed by what he was about to admit. "Overslept. I was too wasted from the night before to walk a straight line, let alone pilot a Boeing over seven-thousand miles with nothing but ocean looking up at me. Blame it on the complimentary booze."

Faraday chimed in. "I didn't know that you worked for Oceanic."

"I didn't." Frank said, going on to explain. "815 was supposed to be my first day on the job, my first piloting gig ever since…you know. I got cold feet, drunk myself silly and you know the rest."

He looked over at Jack, who was rubbing the back of his head, his mind elsewhere. "Why is this the first time I'm hearing about this crash? There was nothing about it in the papers, or on the news."

"Because my mother covered it up." Faraday admitted, expecting Frank to be outraged, and he didn't disappoint.

"Why the hell would she do that?" Frank exclaimed, just as angry about that as Faraday thought he would be.

Faraday moved from his slouched position at the bar, walking towards him. "It's complicated, Frank."

"Well, uncomplicate it for me, Einstein." Frank's voice was back to that angry, bothered register, frustrated with the lack of detailed explanation. "I'm missing the game."

"Maybe I can help?" Jack interjected, trying to diffuse Frank's temper before he decided to kick them out.

Faraday gave Jack the floor, hoping that he could talk some sense into Frank. "I was on that flight, Frank. I was stuck on that Island and the only reason I'm standing here is to get help for the people that I left behind." Jack cleared the emotion from his throat, tears coming to his eyes. "Two of them happen to be my sister and her son, my nephew." Faraday looked over at him with solemn, shocked eyes. Jack hadn't told him that, and now he wondered why that was.

"I know that we're asking for the impossible, Frank but Dan says that you're the best pilot out there and only you can get the job done. I trust him and his instincts. I am begging for your help, and if you agree to do this, anything you want in return is yours."

Frank took a moment to think about Jack's offer, then spoke. "Before I give you any kind of answer, I want to ask one question, and you gotta answer honestly. You got it?" He bargained.

"Of course." Jack nodded, willing to do just about to anything to get this man to agree to help him.

"Captain Seth Norris, the pilot who took my place. He's a friend, the one who talked me into giving myself a second chance." He took a staggered breath, holding back tears. "He recommended me for the job with Oceanic. He's one of the good ones, married, two young kids. He one of the survivors?"

Flashes of those harrowing moments in the cockpit that first day flooded Jack's memory. The raucous sounds of the beast outside the wreckage, of what he now knew to be the Smoke Monster, came back to him. He remembered a kind man who wanted to help them as much as possible before the sight of him being ripped through the window pane was all he had left.

Jack shook his head as he looked down to the floor, deeply sorry for being the bearer of terrible news. "I'm sorry Frank, he, uh—he didn't make it."

Frank wanted to ask for specifics, but he didn't need them, didn't really want them. He looked physically sick, stepping back as if that would help his desperate need of air. "Damn." He swore in a whisper as he staggered to the area behind the bar, Jack and Faraday looking on worriedly. He grabbed a bottle from nearby and poured its contents into his glass, drinking it thirstily. To say that he was crushed was an understatement.

"I'm sorry, Frank." Faraday offered.

"It shoulda been me, Dan." Frank admitted while pouring another drink, fat, stubborn tears in his eyes. "I mean, look at me," he gestured to himself, disgusted. "I sit here every damn day and get drunk off my ass, because I can. I'm nothing to nobody, but he—", he coughed back the cry that tried to escape, "he had a family, people who depended on him. He believed that I could pull myself together, and I let him down. He didn't deserve this. I did."

"Frank, you can't think like that, it won't help anything, believe me, I tried." Faraday urged.

"You know the very real dangers that are on that Island as much as I do, and there are people still there that don't deserve to die like Seth and Charlotte did." Frank looked up at him then. They shared a look of pain, real blistering pain. Frank remembered the redheaded scientist vividly, her exuberance and smarts, but what he remembered most was just how much Daniel loved her, how it was so evident in his smile, his eyes, and in everything he was when she was near.

"Please, Frank. Help me help them." He could see that shell cracking, that tough Brooklyn exterior that sheltered this caring man that had been locked up inside for way too long. "We're the only ones who can." Frank looked over to Jack, and saw the same pleading, puppy dog look in his eyes as he had in Faraday's, both men breaking him down where he stood.

"Alright I'll do it." Frank blistered. Jack let go of a breath he hadn't realized he was holding in until the pressure in his chest subsided.

"Thank you, Frank." Faraday said, letting go of the same stalled breath Jack had.

"Yeah, yeah." He grumbled, taking another shot of whiskey to somehow cure the bout of insanity he must be suffering through. "I must be out of my damn mind to agree to this."

"No. You're the man I've always known you to be." Faraday said with a smile. Frank couldn't help but smile back. The kid was a good person, decent, kind, brave, smart beyond measure, he thought, and he admired the hell out of him for it.

"Yeah, well, you owe me one, Faraday, a big one," Frank half-joked, "and I will collect."

Faraday grinned, laughing. "I know you will."

The rain came down in buckets, soaking Kate to the bone as she led on. The sky was filled with lightning, crackling and rumbling all around her after about four hours of unrelenting sunlight. She was freezing, silently chastising herself for cursing the heat that once radiated around her. At least she could pull what little clothing she brought with her off, but with it being so wet and chilled, she didn't have enough to keep dry or warm. The weather had to be terrible when she was moving forward and never looking back.

She had been following her old tracks, which were not as obvious to her after four days of age, but with the tireless rainspout, there was nothing left to follow but her God-given sense of direction and instinct. The ground was slippery under the soles of her boots and it was getting harder to keep her balance in most places. Of what little sign that she had been here before faded away, she kept moving, hoping to find a dry spot to make camp, at least until the rain stopped.

Thunder clapped through the sky then, echoing through the wet leaves, scaring her out of her thoughts and making her lose her balance. She fell to the ground, slipping down the slight bulge of the incline she was walking over at the time. Now muddy to add to her wet and cold state, she cursed out loud. Standing up slowly, not interested in falling again, she tried to think of what to do now that she was literally running around blind in a thunderstorm. The last time this happened, the Smoke Monster attacked, and with her luck, it could very well attack again.

She got a hold of herself and stumbled forward a few yards, trembling out of fear and cold. Head tilted to the ground to reduce the raindrops that fell on her face, she noticed the edge of a square hole in the ground in the near distance. She could literally see earth beneath the grass that curled over and down, into what could only be a ditch in the middle of the jungle. Stepping closer, she could see the rest of it, how the ground caved in there, mistakable by the untrained eye, but Kate felt like she knew these grounds now, every inch, and she had felt like she was off track awhile ago, way off, but she knew it for sure now.

She pulled out the flashlight she packed and turned it on, pointing it downwards once she reached it. So much for Tom joking about a mass grave in the backyard, she thought that she continued to peer into the ditch, startled and horrified. Bodies on top of more bodies greeted her, fleshless, nothing but bone and teeth remained. It was like a scene out of a horror movie. They kind of reminded her of the skeletons in the caves, but with the way those two were staged, someone had left them there deliberately, a sacred resting place probably. But these bodies were just haphazardly thrown down this trench, abandoned, years ago from the looks of it.

She moved in closer, kneeling, her flashlight waving over every corner when she noticed the octagonal emblem on their old, ratted clothing, the same emblem she noticed in the hatch and on the labels of the goods that lined their kitchen back at the beach. The same emblem that Desmond wore on his jumpsuit, before fleeing the hatch, leaving them to shoulder the responsibility of it. Were these his people? What happened to them? Who did this to them?

Discovering all that she could there, and realizing that she would probably never get answers to her questions, she backed away and kept moving. With the rain still pouring down, Kate had decided that finding shelter until it passed was her best bet of survival. In that moment, she noticed something beyond the trees, peeking at her and out of curiosity that just wouldn't quit, she walked towards it, her eyes widening. She sighed, in awe of her dumb, ironic luck.

The cabin.

It had snuck up on her again, breaking a smile through her tired, wet face. Although she was happy to see it once again, she felt like this wasn't where the cabin had been before. She was pretty freaked out after the Smoke Monster's attack, but she was pretty sure that she wouldn't have missed a big ditch of dead bodies the last time she was here. Or maybe she had.

The circle of black ash remained unbroken as she skipped over it, approaching the front door. She found the lantern right where it was the last time, hanging on the porch, against the door frame. Deciding that it would be better to save the battery power in the flashlight, she reached in her pack for matches and lit the wick, turning the knob on the side to brighten the flame while turning the flashlight off. She stepped inside, and the stale smell of it brought her reprieve. The trembling fear she once felt was completely gone. She knew that she was safe here. No matter what lie outside these walls, she knew she was protected. Nothing could hurt her here.

She let go of a relieved breath. Sitting her pack and the lantern on the wooden table as she closed the door behind her, she looked around. It was just the same as she'd left it. She shrugged out of the wet jacket that clung to her like a second skin, and took out a couple of rags from her bag. If she was going to stay here, the dirt and grime had to go.

"Time to get to work." She mumbled to herself.

Moments later, Kate plopped down onto the bed, which was now covered with a fresh sheet and blanket. She was sweaty, dirty, tired, but she grinned at her surroundings. The place wasn't the most extravagant by anyone's estimation, but it was now cleaner than it has been before. She wiped at her forehead with her forearm, ready for sleep and ready to finally figure out what was drawing her here.

This place, for all the risks she took to find it, was her home now.

Jack came through the front door of his apartment, setting his keys down on the table next to it, his adrenaline pumping in his veins. Tomorrow was the day. Faraday had set everything up, the pilot, the plane, everything. He couldn't believe how fast things were happening. He paced his living room, silently jumping for joy. He ran his hands through his hair as he blew out a tired, angsty breath, seeing things clearer than ever before. He was going back to the Island, to save his friends, but to also figure what the hell it was doing to him. He had to know already. The suspense of it was more chilling than anything he has ever experienced.

He was standing in the middle of his living room when he noticed the envelope on the dining room table. His father's letter. He walked over to it, picked it up slowly, stared at it painfully. He flipped it over in his hands, hesitated to open it. What would it say? Would it echo his mother's plea for him to stay in LA or would his father's last words to him be of something else? Would they shine a light on what his father had always hidden from him, denied to him?

He was poised to open it when he heard a key slide into the doorknob and twist. He turned towards it, watching as she entered the space, her eyes landing on his as soon as she looked up from pulling her key out of the deadbolt that wasn't even locked.

"Mom?"

"Hello, Jack." Margo walked in very casually, her purse hanging from her right arm, her hair swept up into a loose, stylish bob and her clothing just as professional and conservative as they always were. She looked cool on the outside, but Jack knew his mother, and he knew there was a storm brewing underneath her calm demeanor. She was hurt and disappointed and he was sure he'd hear all about it.

"What are you doing here?" Jack asked, the letter still gripped in his fist. He folded it quickly and stuck it into his pocket as her back was turned.

She sat her purse down on the couch, turning back to her handsome son. "I've given you your space, an entire month's worth. I've called, left messages, but I've run out of patience." Before she could start in on him, Jack thought it best to stop her and tell her everything, what he should have told her the second he was home.

"Mom—"

"The Board won't wait much longer, Jack." She interrupted him, her voice stern and frigid. "We need to act fast to get you implemented. They've been lenient, because of what you've been through, but now they're taking your hesitance as a sign that you're not ready, that you don't want it bad enough."

"Mom—"

"They want you to go through some type of counseling, to work through your survivors' guilt, because that's what I think this it is. You closing yourself off from the world in this way, it has to be some type of post-traumatic—"

"Mom!" Jack raised his voice. This was what she always did. She encroached, bombarded, demanded, and he would have to let her down, which was the last thing he wanted to do. He looked at her regrettably. "I can't."

Margo sighed. "Not this again, Jack." She walked closer to him, her voice growing harsher with every step she took. "I thought that time and reflection would bring you some perspective, to help you understand that this is—"

"I lied to you." He couldn't take it anymore, blurting out the confession, crushing his mother's heart in the process. "About where I've been, how I got back, about everything."

Visibly stung, Margo moved back from him, bracing herself. "What are you talking about?"

With his hands on his waist, he looked down at the floor, not able to look her in the eyes just yet. "There was a plane crash, that much is true, but it didn't crash where I told you it did, and I wasn't the only survivor."

"What?" She asked. "I don't understand."

"I was told that I couldn't tell anyone, that it needed to stay a secret, but things have changed and now you have to know." Jack looked up at her then. "I crashed on this Island, I don't even know where it is or what it is, but there are people still there, people who were on that plane too. I promised them that I would come back, and now I can."

"So, in the meantime, you decided to deceive your mother into believing that you were staying, that you were actually home for good?" She sounded betrayed, violated, and Jack knew he was in for it now.

"Mom, I didn't—" He tried to explain the unexplainable.

"Don't you dare, Jack!" She spewed, seething. "I just got you back and you're ready to just leave again?"

"I can't just leave them there, and go on with my own life like it never happened, like I can forget them." Jack defended himself. "That's what you want, isn't it? For me to live the life that you and Dad had planned out for me, no questions asked?"

"What is so wrong with that?" She asked, exasperated. "Your father is dead, Jack. He's never coming back. I have an entire house full of reminders, of what I've lost, of the life that he promised he would be there for, always. But he's not is he? He broke that promise, he left me and now you're doing the same thing."

"There's more." Jack admitted repentantly.

Margo groaned, not sure if she could take much more. "Of course there is." Sarcasm dripped from her tone as she rubbed her head.

"One of the survivors is a young girl, mid-twenties. She…she—" There was no easy way to tell her this, Jack realized. There was no easy way to break it to her. "She's his daughter, Mom." He shook his head and then completed his thought. "I have a sister."

Margo looked blank, emotionless. She turned away from him, retreating from him. A little confused by her response to her husband lying to her about a child he had with another woman, Jack walked up behind her, ready and willing to comfort her through this. He placed his hands where they hovered over her shoulders, not touching, but in position to do so if she needed him to. They stood there for minutes, and Jack began to really worry. She was too quiet, he thought, too composed about this bombshell. Something was wrong here.

"Mom?" She eventually turned back to him, her hand covering her mouth, her head shaking in panic. Jack could read the look in her eyes; he could smell the deceit all over her. It was clear to him now. He dropped his hands to his side, enlightened, suddenly angry himself, outraged.

"You knew." He said it as fact, he didn't ask, or ponder it. He knew it; he could see it in her face. Margo continued to stare at him, letting go of a small puff of air with a stifled cry. She could hear the feelings of betrayal in his voice, feelings she never wanted him to discover. "You knew about her all this time."

"Jack, I—" She reached for him, but he pulled away before she could, his eyes shiny with unshed tears. His mother knew about Claire. His father obviously knew about Claire, from birth even, but he was the only person who didn't know about her. Even Juliet knew before him. Did everyone know?

"You were never supposed to find out about her, Jack. That's the way it was supposed to be." Margo pleaded with him, sobbing. "He promised me that you would never know." He promised? Jack thought while he tried to fight the nausea that fisted through his stomach.

"What?" He asked, the hurt in his eyes and voice combined jabbing. Margo realized that she had revealed too much about a conversation that happened too long ago to dive into now, but she knew her son, and she knew that he wouldn't let this go. The betrayed, upset part of him wouldn't let her hide from this. She went cold, still, and Jack knew that she wasn't going to elaborate unless he forced her to.

While approaching her, he called, "Mom." His tone was no-nonsense, deep. She looked up at him, tears rolling down from her eyes. His voice became softer at the sight of them, but he still pushed, prodded. "What did you do?"

She wiped at her tears angrily as she backed away from him, suddenly defensive now that he sounded like he thought she had done something horridly wrong by protecting her family, their family. "What do you think I did?" Her clipped, strangled voice spat. "I gave him an ultimatum. I made him choose. His mistress and illegitimate daughter or his wife and son. I don't have to tell you what choice he made."

She was so guiltless, so justified in what she had done, but there was that part that he could see clearly, the part that struggled with what she did for years now, but she was stubborn and refused to see how damaging that ultimatum was for so many people, Claire being at the top of that list.

"Is that why he picked Australia to run off to?" Jack asked, nearly cutting her off. "Is that why you were in such a hurry for me to get down there to get him? Because you thought that he'd be with her?" He spewed.

"Jack, you don't—"

"She was pregnant when we crashed, Mom. Did you know that too?" Jack accused, letting all of his anger and hurt come through without reservation. "She was coming here to give her baby away."

"How is that your problem?" Margo exclaimed.

"I could've helped her!" Jack shouted, astonished by his mother's selfishness. From what he remembered about his conversations with Claire, she was alone, in life, especially in her pregnancy, finding no way out but to give her child to someone she thought was better suited to love and provide for it. Looking back on those conversations they had and how protective and crazed she was about her child's health and welfare, no one was better suited to be Aaron's mother than her.

"I could know her as my little sister and not the stranger I thought she was, that you wanted her to be." He scoffed, turning his back on her, welcoming the view of the skyline outside his balcony window. He understood her feelings of betrayal and would take her side any day when it came to what his father had put her through over the years, but what she had done in return was just as selfish as the cheating.

He turned back and saw that she was now sitting on the couch, sulking in a pool of her own guilt and shame. She looked so small, so terribly tiny and truly broken up for having lied to him, about what she had done. No matter what, she was his mother, and beyond the hurt he felt, he wanted to know how it all happened. He came over and sat down next to her, letting the silence persist for a minute longer before he spoke, his voice calmer now, less judgmental and cruel.

"How did you find out?"

"He told me." She answered blankly. "He sat me down and told me that he had been seeing someone for about two years, that he met her at a medical conference in Melbourne."

Margo stared listlessly in front of her, lost in her memories of the conversation. "I didn't understand why he was telling me. He never told me, he just did what he wanted. I knew about all the other women, the late nights at the hospital weren't always about his patients, but when he confessed about her, I knew that this woman was different somehow, that he had fallen for her." She wiped a tear away from her face, the next part of the story the most hurtful to her, even after all these years.

"He then told me that she was pregnant, and that she decided to keep it, and he wanted her to keep it." Jack winced at this new information. He wanted to reach out to her, but he felt she would reject the comfort if he tried. He realized that by making Christian promise not to tell him, his mother knew that he wanted to, that he planned to.

"He wanted to tell me." He sounded startled, shocked, because his father wasn't one to divulge his secrets.

Margo nodded sadly. "You were thirteen at the time, away at boarding school for the summer. By the time you'd gotten home, we decided that he would never see her or his daughter, so it wouldn't make sense to tell you."

She chuckled deprecatingly as she looked over at him. "I don't even know her name."

Jack knew that she was talking not about the woman her husband was sleeping with, but the child they created together. "It's Claire." Jack said, looking into his mother's hazel eyes. "In hindsight, she has his eyes."

And he had hers, he thought as he continued to lock gazes with Margo, finding the hue and shape of her orbs very familiar. He watched the small smile reach her lips at the shared detail. She knew those eyes all too well. She missed them so much. She wouldn't know how to react if she ever met this young woman who had her husband's stormy grays.

"Does she know that he's dead?" Margo asked.

"I didn't even know she was my sister until a month ago, Mom. I don't know what she knows." He answered as he stood up from the couch.

"You said she was pregnant when the plane crashed." She recalled interestedly.

"Yeah, uh, she was eight months along. She told me that her doctor cleared her for the flight, but I think she was lying just to get me off her case. She had a little boy about twenty days in. His name is Aaron." He said it with a small smile of his own.

"I'm sure he's beautiful." She said honestly.

Jack stopped pacing in front of her, set with his mission and unwilling to fight any longer about it. "I have to get the both of them off that Island, Mom. I won't abandon them. You can hate me for it all you want, but—"

Margo stood abruptly, reaching for her son. She cupped his face in her feeble hands, proud, but sad tears in her eyes. "I could never hate you. I hate this decision. I hate that it has to be you, but this is who you are, Jack. This has always been who you are." She said it with such relief, although he could still hear the fear and hesitation.

"I was scared of losing him, so I made him ditch his own daughter just to make sure I never would. I was selfish with him, and I'm ashamed of that, but I can't be selfish with you. I understand that now." She nodded, more tears falling, causing him to hold back his own. She lowered her hands to his shoulders. "When are you leaving?"

"First thing in the morning." He said deplorably, watching her eyes close and open again on an agonized, longing sigh.

She pulled him into a hug, her tiny arms holding him so tightly. Her voice was choked with emotion, muffled against the bulge of his shoulder as she let herself be held by her son. She felt so small in his arms, so protected and loved.

"You be careful, Jack. Do you hear me?" She felt him nod his head against hers. "I love you."

He held to her with all he had, finally letting the tears fall. "I love you too."