I've decided to change the story's cover image for each new chapter. It was something I was trying when I moved the story elsewhere, and hopefully it'll help with visualizing certain scenes.

Enjoy. :)

Hurley and Charlie walked down the beach side by side. They finally reunited the night before, running through a string of apologies and man-hugs, as they called them. Charlie was the one who made the first move, apologizing profusely for having thrown Libby in his face. Hurley missed him too much to hold a grudge anymore.

They were just about to grab something from the kitchen when they saw Sun sitting outside of her tent, alone, rubbing over her small pregnant middle, a wide-brimmed sun hat, the one she wore when she gardened, sat on her head. She looked quiet, peaceful, but they wondered where Jin had run off to. He never left his wife's side, not for one second.

"Hey Sun." Charlie said, grabbing her attention. She looked to both of their smiling faces, and let go of her own smile.

"Oh, look who finally made up." Both of them eyed each other and laughed lightly. "What's going on?"

"Nothing much, just waiting for the A-Team to come back from wherever they went. How is…uh…" Hurley said.

"The baby?" Sun asked.

"Yeah, the baby, and the mother of course. Are you feeling okay?" Charlie asked.

She shrugged. "The baby is fine. I have my days. Care to sit down? Keep me company?"

"Yeah, sure." Hurley obliged, taking a seat next to her, in the sand. Charlie sat on the other side.

Sun sent Charlie an inquisitive glare. "Where are Claire and Aaron?" Just as Jin was always by her side, there was never a time she saw Charlie not hovering over Claire and 'Turniphead'. They were the cutest family she ever saw.

"Aaron is being cooed over by Rose, whose looking out for him today while Claire takes a nap." Charlie shared. "Where's Jin?"

Sun pointed down the beach, smiling proudly as she scoped another view of her husband. "Right there."

Hurley and Charlie followed her hand. Jin was far down the beach, shirtless, his pant-legs rolled up as he stood knee-deep in the water, baking in the harsh sunlight. He bent down lower, his hands roaming in search for one of the fishnets he twined with bait over the wet sand below. He pulled the net up, full of fresh catch, and carefully bundled it before walking it to the shore.

"He's really good at that." Charlie whistled.

"Yes, he is." Sun beamed. "His father was a fisherman. It's in his blood."

Jin was coming their way, having dropped the net off to a group of survivors who frequently cleaned, filleted and cooked them for the entire group. Charlie and Hurley helped Sun get to her feet as Jin approached them. He nodded in greeting to his friends, and approached his wife, who craned her neck so that he had no trouble navigating her hat to plant a kiss to her lips. A quick peck turned into a passionate lip-lock as Jin wrapped his arms around her spread waist and pulled her into him. Sun moaned and wrapped her arms around his neck, delighted at how sweaty and hot he was. It reminded her of how she got pregnant in the first place, and how she wanted to repeat the process very soon.

Charlie and Hurley eyed each other amusingly from their peripheral vision as their friends continued to kiss and caress right in front of them, instantly forgetting they were there.

"Uh….do you two want to be alone?" Charlie asked.

Sun was the one to break the kiss, blushing, but never breaking eye contact with Jin. "I'm sorry. Pregnancy hormones."

"Dude." Hurley mumbled.

"Yeah, it was a really great kiss, or at least it looked like—" Charlie went on until he was nudged by Hurley.

He looked up at him, a bit worried, until he followed his shell-shocked expression.

John Locke, in the flesh, stalked through the small community, catching the startled attention of everyone he passed. Anyone who was anyone thought he was dead, or at the very least they would never see him again based on what Sayid told them. But the man was still larger than life, slicing through the calm ambiance with the sharp blade of one of his hunting knives. He looked as grimy as ever, and not approachable at all, as he made his way across the beach, his pack slung over one shoulder, and a chip sitting over the other.

Jin turned to Sun and spoke to her quickly in Korean, and she answered in kind, watching as Locke continued his stride. Hurley quickly veered from behind Charlie to approach Locke, but he stopped him.

"Whoa, where are you going, mate?" Charlie asked.

Hurley tried to walk around Charlie again, but he put all of his strength, and weight, into his much larger friend's torso. "I'm gonna go talk to Locke."

"I don't think that's such a good idea." Charlie said calmly. "He just got back from…wherever he's been for all these weeks. I don't think he's in the mood for a chit-chat…or an interrogation."

Hurley knew that Charlie was right, but he had so many questions, and he bet that if Sayid were here, he would have asked them already and gotten answers. He decided that he was going to wait to talk to Locke, after he was able to settle himself back into living amongst a group of people who weren't really sure if they could trust him.

Sawyer led the way back to the beach where they stashed the canoe. He was silent, anger radiating off of him. Juliet walked behind him at one point, keeping a safe enough distance, but hoping that he'd turn around and say something. Yelling at her, being annoyed by her, both were better than this.

She felt guilty, for what she did, for the part she played in his pain. It was so easy for Ben, to manipulate the situation, but it wasn't so cut and dry for her. She wanted James to have his revenge, on Ben, but Sayid was right. They were outnumbered, in every way. Ben had people around him that were as loyal as dogs, and would do anything to protect him. She'd seen it herself. They were all warped, and she was hedging in that direction once upon a time.

So, she would offer herself up to him, she decided. If he needed revenge, he could get it from her. But in the meantime, she felt it best to leave him alone. She ended up by Sayid's side. She didn't know him well at all, but she could definitely tell that he was in deep thought.

"Any ideas yet about how we're gonna handle this?" Juliet asked, catching Sayid's attention. He kept his stride as he answered her.

"Everyone knows that Jack is back, but we have to contain that information. Locke, if he's not dead, will come back to the beach eventually, he always does. And when he does, he can't know about any of this, Jack, the device, nothing."

"So, we're gonna lie to him too, not only about the device, but about everything?"

"Yes." Sayid said with certainty, but could tell that Juliet wasn't in agreement with him. "Is that a problem?"

"I just don't get why. He was the one who didn't want Jack to leave." Juliet pointed out.

Sayid ducked under a hanging tree branch. "We're lying to John because I don't trust him."

Juliet nodded. Okay, that was clear enough, she thought sarcastically. "You don't trust me, and that hasn't stopped you from keeping me in the loop."

"You're different." Sayid said, with a slight grin.

Juliet laughed. "Oh yeah? How's that?"

"You could have easily gone to Ben with the news about Jack and this device, but you didn't. And for that, you've earned some leeway." Sayid informed her.

Juliet hummed. At least she knew where she stood with him. "Hmm, leeway. My favorite. I hate Ben just as much as you do. I don't plan on giving him anything."

"Good to know." Sayid said.

She picked up her pace, prodding him for more information. "So what did he do?" He turned to her questioningly. "John? To make you not trust him, what did he do?"

"You said yourself that he didn't want Jack to leave, but it applies to us all, he doesn't want any of us to leave this Island." Sayid offered. "A few days after the crash, I developed a method for locating the source of Rousseau's distress call, by triangulating the signal. If I were able to locate the source…"

"You could go to the source, figure out why it's blocking the signal, unblock it and communicate with the outside world." Juliet said, proud of herself for finally being able to follow Sayid's train of thought.

"Precisely. My plan worked perfectly, but there was a great flaw that I didn't account for."

"I'm guessing that'd be John." Juliet said.

"He attacked me from behind and when I came to, my equipment was completely destroyed." Sayid said, a bit of anger in his tone.

"You said he attacked you from behind? How do you know it was Locke?"

"Because he told me so himself. He said that I was so focused on getting off the Island that I wasn't seeing things clearly. I never knew what he meant by that, until now. He doesn't want to leave Juliet, he doesn't want any of us to, and that's why I don't trust him."

"If John finds out about Jack and that plane, especially this," Sayid brought the EMP device up from his back pocket, "he'll stop at nothing to try to keep us on this Island. I won't let that happen. Not again."

"So what's the plan?" Juliet asked.

"We have to figure out a way to find Jack," Sayid began, "and get the hell off this Island before Locke has a chance to stop us."

"Sounds feasible, but you're forgetting something."

"What?" Sayid was completely lost now.

"Locke saw me leave the Island with Jack. If he comes back, he'll definitely see me and put two and two together. He's gonna figure it out, Sayid. He will figure out that Jack is back on the Island. So, we need a back-up plan, and fast."

"We're here." Sawyer announced, still removed and unapproachable. He wasn't too removed. As he walked, he listened in on Sayid and Juliet's conversation. He had an idea about how to explain Juliet's existence on the beach, but he was stuck with whether or not to share it. Watching her sink under Locke's inquiry would be a sight to behold, but Sayid was right, protecting their way off the Island was what they needed to do, and Locke was not invested in that at all.

They all helped pull the canoe from behind the leaves and trees on the beach, dragging it out to the water. Sawyer turned and eyed Juliet, who caught him watching her from the other side. She offered a small, sympathetic smile, and went about loading her pack into the belly and positioning herself to help push it into the water. She shimmered under the harsh sunlight. Her hair was silky and radiant, wavy strands of it falling about her face from a sloppy ponytail. Her slender cheekbones curved down to her nice mouth, and it was even nicer when she wasn't sassing him with it.

Her eyes, they weren't just blue, they were crystal.

Damn, he thought. Why did she have to be so beautiful?

"You're not real." Kate's sad, broken tone, seeped through her cracked, scratchy voice, and it broke Jack's heart all over again. Her hands started to shake, and her breathing grew more erratic.

"Yes I am, I swear." He begged, his throat closed at how scared she was, how unsure she suddenly was of her own sanity. To prove it to her, his hand came down to touch hers, still clutched around the handle of her gun, shakily. She felt him and in turn, he felt her, and it was all the confirmation he needed that she was real too. He let out an affected breath.

Her hands had stopped seizing upon the contact, but she didn't let up on the gun. He could see the shift in her face, her bugged eyes dimmed ever so slightly, her full lips parted. Her breathing was beginning to even out as she let herself believe him.

His voice was softer as he realized that she was starting to come around. "It's me."

She gasped. He was there with her, in real time and space.

"Jack?"

"Hey." Was all he said in return, a smile creeping up in his face at the mesmerized shine in her eyes.

"Oh my God." She sighed loudly and happily, dropping the gun and scooting to the edge of the bed, wrapping her arms around his neck. He stood up on his knees to catch her, her tiny torso and breasts flushed against him when they collided. He released a sigh on impact. It was the first time he felt like he was home. Truly home.

She felt around his shoulders, and upper back just to make absolutely sure that it was him, that he was alive in her hands. He was warm, the scent that was all his filled her nostrils, and his scratchy stubble chafed the skin of her shoulder. It was sensory overload, but she was the happiest she had ever been.

"I almost shot you!" She peeped out, banding her arms around his neck even tighter. She couldn't seem to get close enough. Crawling under his skin still wouldn't be as close as she needed to be.

"I noticed." He giggled into her hair, taking his time to inhale her. The tension eased from every muscle in his body.

"I knew it." She laughed, tears spilling over her cheeks. "I knew you'd come back. I knew you were alive. I just knew it."

He just held her as she rambled and chanted 'I knew it' over and over again, followed by a solemn breakdown. He felt more tears pooling his eyes as she heaved and sobbed against him. What was she doing here? He thought. Why wasn't she on the beach? Why wasn't she with Sawyer? The emotion that was pouring out of her left him reeling. He put it in the back of his mind, his large hand now cupping the back of her head as she eventually collected herself.

"I missed you so much." She sighed, calming down as he continued to hold on to her. Their breathing slowed together, their heartbeats meeting and melding at the center.

"I missed you too." He choked out, and he meant it, holding her just as long and hard as he was being held, with no real intention of letting her go. He missed her every single day. She was everything that he would never have.

She finally released him, and couldn't stop staring at him. Every other thought was lost on her as she took note of the features that completely beguiled her. Her hands caressed his face, and wiped at his tears as his eyes traveled over her. Her bare legs were folded underneath her, and her thighs led up to her white underwear. He brought his eyes back to her gorgeous face, the way she bit down on her lower lip as she continued to stare at him was more mesmerizing than the discovery that she wasn't wearing much.

His eyes came unglued from her face and he looked around. "What is this place?"

"It's a cabin, in the jungle." Kate told him.

Jack continued to inspect their surroundings. "Who does it belong to?"

Kate shrugged, her hands now planted over the smooth curve of his broad shoulders. "I have no idea."

"What are you doing here?" He asked.

"Waiting for you." She said, simply. His brow creased in confusion. "After you left, I was drawn to it, and I don't know why or how." She was suddenly embarrassed, and brought her hands up to push her curls behind her ears.

"I know this sounds crazy, but, I could feel you here."

She grinned when she saw a slight blush creep up his cheeks. "Well, lucky for you, I'm getting pretty used to things sounding crazy."

"How did you find me?"

He shook his head. "I didn't. I woke up here."

"Woke up?" She asked.

"Yeah, um…" He didn't speak for a good while, thinking about his exact words. How did he explain what was happening to him in a way that she would understand and believe?

"Jack?" Kate unfolded her legs and let them hang off the edge of the bed, so that her feet were planted between his thighs on the floor. She brought her hands up again to caress his face, to urge him to tell her everything.

"Juliet said you disappeared. Where have you been?"

He fisted his hands and let them fall on either side of her. "I've been here, on the Island, but in the past." He watched her face scrunch up in puzzlement.

"What?" She squeaked out. In the past? Her eyes widened as it dawned on her what he was saying. "You've been time-travelling?" He nodded.

"How is that even possible?"

"How is it possible that you knew to come here?" He countered.

"Touché." She replied. What the hell was happening to them? She didn't really care for an answer, she was just grateful that their paths had finally crossed.

"Time-travel?" Kate asked again, still not able to wrap her mind around it. Jack nodded tiredly as he closed his eyes and bowed his head with a long sigh, sitting his face in her lap. Her fingers played in his hair as he rested, and she leaned into him, her cheek pressing into the side of his head. Her curls fell down to cloak them, like a silky brown cocoon.

He was so tired, she realized. He had nothing left to give and she cried for how bowed and broken he was, her tears silent as she held him. All she wanted to do was take care of him. They stayed like that for a few moments, her hands rubbed up and down his back soothingly. It was comforting enough to put him to sleep if he let it.

Kate's question came through in a gentle whisper as she straightened up. "To when?"

Eventually, he sat upright and rubbed his hands over his face. "When the Black Rock crash-landed here, whenever that was. I met this guy, goes by Jacob."

Her eyes darted about. "Who is he?"

"All I know is that he protects the Island."

"Protects it from what?"

"From people who want to take advantage of it." Jack answered.

"Okay," Kate replied, still confused, "but what does that have to do with you? I don't…"

Her voice started to fade into the background as Jack recalled his conversation with Jacob. There was so much and so little he actually said, but it fell to the backburner to what he really cared about in that moment. He was on his way to the plane, he needed to get there, to find it and do what needed to be done. He had to save it, before he could ever bring himself to believe that it was his destiny to protect it.

"Wait a minute." Jack said.

Kate watched the worry take shape in his features. "What? What is it?"

He looked up to meet her eyes. "You said Juliet said that I disappeared from the plane."

"Yeah."

"So, you've seen her?"

"She showed up at the beach last night, and told us what happened to you." She told him, trying her best to soothe him with that information. "Why does that—"

"Did she have something with her, a device?" He cut her off. "It looks like a complicated sat-phone." She struggled to keep up with his train of thought. They were just talking about some guy named Jacob from however many centuries ago that protects the Island and now he was asking her about some device? If she wasn't worried about his state of mind before, she definitely was now.

He reiterated, impatiently, "Did she have it?"

"I—I don't think so?" She said it as a question and not an answer. "What is th—?"

"We gotta go." He struggled to stand, bumping his head against the edge of the table behind him.

"Damnit!" He swore. His tall, large stature overwhelmed the tiny space. He finally, awkwardly got to his feet.

"Jack." She said his name to reprimand him. When he got like this, he was a bull with a red flag swinging at his nose. There was no stopping him. She stood to help him keep his balance. "Where are you going?"

He felt dizzy, nauseous, and stopped to flatten his palm over the table's surface so he didn't crash to the floor. He looked down at her, rubbing the knot at the back of his head, panicked, his breathing labored again. "The beach. We gotta find that plane. Juliet can tell us where it landed."

With her fists clutching to the fabric of his shirt at the waist, she asked, "Why?"

"ELMA. It's still there. I have to detonate it, and if I don't do it soon, none of this will matter."

His eyes fluttered open, the sunlight poured in, stung. He was still woozy, bordering on a headache, and the sticky fog of heat summoned the sweat from his body. He could feel the grass behind his head, back and arms, smelled it even. He didn't know how much more he could take. He wasn't in the cabin anymore. He wasn't with Kate anymore. He was alone, again, and he was starting to believe that there would be no end to this.

He sat up, easing himself into it slowly, his head pounding and his teeth grinding. He was angry. How in the hell could he save the Island if he was never going to be allowed to actually do it? Between the burgeoning headache and the hopelessness rising inside of him, he was surely about to lose grip of his sanity.

He got to his feet, and started walking around, stalking through the leaves, his temper flaring. He came to a path that was worn, like it'd been trampled through a dozen or more times. He walked it, eyes peeling for any clues, and finally found one. He picked it up and dusted it off. An inhaler. He kept on the path, and eventually landed next to a mammoth hedge of rockslide, its brownish-green erosion embedded under thick overgrowth.

The caves.

The inhaler made sense to him now. It was Shannon's. She was the only survivor he'd known to have a severe case of asthma. He walked around to find the entrance. He could hear the waterfall before he could see it, and when he saw it, memories flooded like water in the pool below.

He looked around. It was clear of any signs of habitation from the group he led, and it reminded him of when he started the initiative to move here. The shade, protection from predators, endless supply of fresh water, it was a goldmine in comparison to their shanty set-up on the beach. This once represented salvation, a place to dig in, to feel somewhat safe and secure until rescue came, which he always believed was a long way down the road. Only it was never in the cards at all.

He remembered how much he wanted Kate to come live here with him, and how frustrated he was when she couldn't, no, wouldn't. He would give anything to get that back, the simpler times when all they fought about was being apart by a few yards.

Stepping around, he came to where he remembered Kate stumbling upon them, terrified. His brow knitted in confusion once he got closer to inspect. They were gone, the cavity was empty.

He tried to resolve this mystery for himself. If he had travelled back in time, before the bodies were laid to rest here, Shannon's inhaler wouldn't have been just outside, he deduced. When was he now? Nothing added up. Before he could drum up a feasible explanation for the inexplicable, he saw something inside, poking through a crack in the bedrock. He reached for it. It was a tiny dirt-cloth bag tied with a string of old yarn. He already knew what was inside, and when he poured them into his palm, he let out a nervous sigh.

The stones, black and white, a complete pair, gleaned in the modest lighting.

He shook his head. Now he was even more confused. He placed them back in the tiny sack and absentmindedly stuffed it in his pocket as he walked around.

Another inconsistency peeked out, taunting him. At the sight of it, he held his breath, staggered, and hesitated to move forward. He knew it would be there, he didn't know the how any more than he knew the why, but he felt it. He kneeled down next to it, tears stinging his eyes. His father's coffin, shattered into a million pieces, was almost completely overrun by grass. He remembered the moment he'd taken a steel pipe to it, his rage boiling. The way the wood cracked and splintered mimicked his heart at opening it to find his body missing. He was never there when he needed him the most, even in death.

Jack's throat closed with sadness as he looked away, not able to stand the sight of it anymore. "I wish you were here." He struggled to say, his emotions deepening his voice. "You would know what to do."

He brought his hands together, as if to plead, to keep his head from dropping. He had given up. The tears fell down his cheeks in droves and he actually found himself praying to a higher power he never thought himself capable of being so modest to trust actually existed.

He was crying now, burying his face in his hands, overwrought with a sickening sense of failure. "I don't know what to do."

"Yes you do, kiddo."

He slowly brought his head up when he heard it. It couldn't be. He died. He was dead. He was staring at his coffin for crying out loud, but when he turned to see him standing there, he now knew he was insane, but he didn't fight it. Sanity meant he wasn't there, so he would give it up. He'd let it go, just to have him back.

He stood up, facing the vision before him. "Dad?"

"Hello, Jack."

It was nighttime, and the camp slowed as mostly everyone retreated to their shelters. John Locke was the talk of the town. Where had he been all this time? What had he been doing? Did he really try to stop Jack from going home to bring back help? Was he really that selfish? They were more confused by his presence than they were by Juliet's, who they didn't know or trust.

The jury was still out on him. He wasn't the same as when he left, but no one had enough courage to really cross him. Hurley, on the other hand, found courage was sometimes in the same category as stupidity, and he knew himself to be very stupid sometimes.

He found him by one of the water troughs, folding into it to fill his water bottle. He walked back over to his tent in the far corner. No one thought he was coming back, but no one overtook his shelter either. It sat empty like a shrine, just as Jack's on the other end of the camp; only it was no longer unoccupied. Carefully, Hurley snuck behind him, nonchalantly, but taking note to keep a safe distance.

"Hello, Hugo." With that, Hurley froze. Locke never turned around, busying himself with unloading his pack, his antennas still tuned, even in the tranquil atmosphere. Locke was a hunter, had an ear tuned to even the slightest sounds. No wonder he survived all this time out there by himself. Yep, he was stupid.

It took Hurley a second to answer. "Hey."

Expecting more, Locke stopped and turned. "Is there something you'd like to ask me?"

"Yeah…" Hurley dragged out his answer, stuck between leaving Locke alone like Charlie told him to, and fulfilling his need to know. "Where you been?"

Locke grinned. "Around."

"That's…" Hurley thought about what he was about to say, and decided to just go for it, "not exactly an answer, dude"

"Last time I checked, I don't have to answer to anyone." Locke turned back to his tent, but not before Hurley could counter.

"What about us? The people who rely on you, who you're going through this with?"

"I shouldn't be looked up to as a leader and no one here understands what I'm going through." Locke said.

"Is that why you tried to stop Jack from leaving?" Hurley blurted out. "Because you want him to understand?"

"You could say that." Locke said.

"Why don't you help me understand." Hurley said. "Why don't you want us to leave this Island?"

A very loaded question, Locke thought. He couldn't tell him anything that he really wanted to know. Not about Christian, or Jacob, or Ben for that matter. "This isn't about the group, it's about Jack."

"He—He had to understand that we were brought here for a reason, he couldn't see it, he—" Locke struggled. He cleared his throat, that bile of anger breaking through his voice anyways.

"Jack was never supposed to leave this Island, and now that he has…I have to sit here, and wait for something that might never happen."

"But it happened." Hurley blurted out, that 'uh oh' look in his eyes very evident to Locke as soon as he said it.

Locke squinted. "What? What are you talking about?"

"Uh…" Hurley drawled out. Yep, he was really stupid. Why didn't he ever listen to Charlie when it mattered?

"What are you not telling me, Hugo?" Locke asked, relentless.

When Hurley failed to answer, his temper burst all over. "What did you mean by that?"

"Is everything okay here?" Rose's voice broke out from nearby. Locke turned and watched a crowd form behind her, to watch the showdown. She did not look pleased. It didn't sit well with her that Hurley was being bullied by a man she had come to respect. She was losing that respect for him, bit by bit, with how he was acting.

"I don't know Rose, you tell me. Seems like I'm the only one on the outs here." Locke said.

"Isn't that where you always want to be? Out on your own? Against the grain?" Rose accused, approaching him. Bernard watched his wife take Locke on full steam, and just stood back and let her. She had been boiling over his deceit for weeks, and he would be a fool not to let her get it off her chest.

"We all know what you did." Rose wasted no time. "You went out there under the false pretense of saving Jack, with your own agenda, your secrets about stopping him and you have the nerve to waltz back in here, after weeks and expect for us to tell you anything?"

Locke tried to backtrack. "I never meant—"

"Oh, I know what you meant." Rose bit back. "You want to have a pow-wow all of a sudden? You want to press Hurley when he's been worried that you'd been killed? He's probably the only person left on this beach who hadn't given up on you and you treat him like this?"

Locke stood, put in his place. "I'm sorry." He said it no louder than a whisper, and then he turned to the group to tell them, loudly. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to come here and do this."

He then turned to Hurley. "Hugo, I'm sorry." Silence loomed as everyone took in Locke's apology. Hurley nodded his acceptance.

"So, are you ready to tell us where you've been?" Rose pleaded.

"And why you tried to sabotage our way off this Island?" Hurley added.

Talk about questions he couldn't give them the answers to. He shrugged, feeling defeated and upset for disappointing them yet again, especially Hurley, who didn't deserve his anger before.

"I can't." Locke announced to the group, watching their faces fall, and some of them turn away.

Rose shook her head. "I thought so." She pushed away from him, still hot. Bernard took her hand and helped her back to their shelter.

Hurley was about to step away as the rest of the group dispersed, when Locke spoke up, desperate. "I'm doing the right thing."

Hurley just stared at him, not sure what to believe, but not settled in thinking Locke could be as singularly fraudulent as he has appeared to be.