XXXVI: The French Inhaler

She is conscious of him at her elbow before he speaks, but she does nothing to avoid him. "We have to talk," he announces, as if his decision matters to the world at large. "It's important," he adds, as if she had the choice to think otherwise.

She smiles at him, though, and turns from where she's been studying the books in the hatch, eyes peeled for anything else that looks suspicious. "Jack?"

"Michael's out there, yelling about how he's going to find his kid. He's going crazy. It'll probably only be a matter of time before he runs off. According to Hurley, you were the last person to speak with him down here in the hatch." Jack doesn't even try to hide his suspicion. "You shouldn't have done that," he declares brusquely. "We're spread thin enough as it is."

She shrugs, dusts her hands off, slides them into her pockets. "I told him he would have to find his kid on his own, that I couldn't say anything that would help him. What should I have said?" She nods towards the computer. There was supposed to be someone on it – the Korean man, she suspects, but he's stepped out for a bit. They've only just entered the numbers recently. "He sat there all day like he could speak to the kid on that, and I couldn't just watch it."

"You shouldn't have told him to go out after him."

She's speechless for a long moment, shaking her head. "Right. Well, look, I'm sorry. He didn't run off – that's the important part. You still have him?" Jack nods. "Well, can I speak to him, then?" she asks. At Jack's suspicious look, she stresses, "I'm a psychologist, Jack. This is what I do."

He laughs sharply. "Not all that successfully, apparently."

She turns away. "Bring him down here, please, Jack. I'll talk to him. I'll convince him that Walt will turn up. Trust me." Something in her words convinces him, despite his suspicion. In case it helps, she adds, "I promise, nothing will happen."

Jack's retreating footsteps are the only proof for at least a few moments that he has done what she's asked, but then she sees Michael and Hurley at the door to the hatch. The Korean's returned, standing with them. "Michael," Jin announces. "You talk – Michael. Tell Michael Walt is safe." He understands far better than Jack, and he can barely tell what we're saying, Libby realizes. She smiles towards the two accompaniments, but her attention is focused on Michael:

"Michael, look," she begins, then wonders if that was the best way to go about it. "You're upset, and I'm sorry if I made you upset. That wasn't my intention. I know I told you to find Walt." She pauses a moment, glances towards Hurley. Hurley gives her a thumbs-up; she nods her thanks to the young man and then continues. "But you can't go running after him. We both know what's out there. If we go out there without proper guides and people who can use guns, who knows what could happen? Right now, both of those are gone."

"Yeah, I know they're gone. They abandoned my kid." Michael takes a seat at the computer chair, staring at her. Hurley and Jin move off to slouch around the room, and she sits down on the couch again, thinking, This is a repeat of the last conversation I had with Michael, except now I have an audience. Michael notices, too. "And look where we are – we're still sitting here, talking about the same damn thing. They took my kid. They took Walt. And I have to go find him."

She can say nothing comforting, but from the look in his eyes, she knows he wants reassurance. She decides, instead,to change the topic. "Do you know where he is?" she asks steadily. "How?"

Michael shrugs, not saying anything for a long moment. He's apparently not that deceptive, though, as she suspected, because he points a thumb towards the computer. "This." Regarding the machine, his voice is a weird combination of reverence, hatred, and desperation. "I spoke with Walt on this. Walt said he was all right. He asked me if I was alone. I said, yeah, I was. And then I asked him where he was. He told me."

Unable to restrain himself, Hurley lets out an exclamatory, "Dude! Where?"

"He didn't say, really, but he told me to leave the camp and go north. So I'll go north."

She runs a hand through her hair, feeling anxious. She's not making as much progress with him as she had hoped. From the corner of her eye, she's seen Jin blink a bit at the word 'north,' apparently getting that much information. "Michael, if you want to go find Walt, we'll go find him. But we have to wait until the others get back. They're better at finding people."

"Yeah, well, they've been out there a day or so, right? They can't be doing that good of a job. And it took you guys a long time to get across the island, anyway." Michael shakes his head. "No. I need to find my son. He's my son." He jabs a thumb at himself, and she wonders: Had there been some sort of question where that was concerned before? Had Walt not always been his son? She decides to avoid those questions, though. There's no sense in worsening things. "And I won't have people who can't even cross an island looking for Walt."

"And what will you do about it?" she asks, keeping her voice as sensible as possible. "How will you track him? Please wait, Michael."

"Yeah, Walt's all right," Hurley encourages her suggestion. "You just need to stick around here until the other guys come back, and they'll find him for you. I'd offer to help you out, but I don't think you want me hiking anywhere," he adds, startlingly self-deprecatory.

Libby shakes her head at Hurley, looking back towards Michael. Her voice sounds strained. "Please, Michael. Just give it a little more time." She looks towards the computer, considering. "You said that you talked with him on that? Do you think you can talk with him again?"

Michael too glances at the computer. He's still tense, and it shows in the tense way he holds himself, the tautness of his forearms, the tightness of his voice. He is not as easily relaxed as she would have hoped. He is, however, calm enough to give her a half-suspicious,"Man, I hope so."

That's good enough for her. "Then go on. See if you can talk to him. At least you'll be doing something to try and find him. Jin," she adds, looking towards the Korean, "Michael's going to be down here for a little while."

Jin nods, turning for the exit with an, "OK, Michael, Lib-by. Be well." He points a finger at himself. "I will fish. Eat at sundown," and then takes off, apparently reassured that his friend is all right.

Libby wonders exactly how much of the conversation he has caught, but decides that it's not really that important anyway. She must concentrate on Michael. She has promised Jack that she will set things right with him and she needs to make sure she's done so. She draws herself up from the couch. Mission accomplished, she thinks. At least Michael's better off now. She glances back at the bookshelves, and Hurley apparently notices this. He rises from where he's been sitting, taking a few steps towards her before he reaches into his backpack. "Hey, Libby. You want your book back?"

She freezes, staring at him for a moment. So much for that secret. "Book? Yeah. Sure." She extends a hand towards him for the book, waiting. Michael slouches behind the computer, his focus on the screen, but she hears no clacking of computer keys to announce that he has made contact with his son. "What do you think it's about, Hurley?"

Hurley shrugs. "Rules, looks like." He grins. "It's a boring book." Despite his dislike for the piece of literature, he flips it open, turning a few pages. "Get this – they're talking about this place. They say that they'll ship food here, but we haven't seen any shipments, have we? I mean, they've got to be joking. Or they've got to be gone." He flips a few more pages. "And check out this dude. He looks like a piece of work. I can't believe he ran the place, but that's what it says."

He holds up the book to her, showing her a face of a man in his fifties.

She studies it. Her mouth drops open. She recognizes him. The face is older, more careworn, but the weird features and the piercing cast of his eyes are recognizable. The man wears a lab coat, just like she always knew he did at the clinic, but there is something beyond that that makes him instantly recognizable. She shakes her head, and has to reach out for the bookshelf to support herself. Her arm wavers a bit before managing to land on one of the shelves, and she clutches it as tightly as she possibly can.

Hurley stares at her for a moment, shaking his head, turning back to the pages. "O… K. Hey, you recognize him or something? Says here his name is Dr. Candle." As he studies the book, his brows are raised as if he thinks she's crazy. Maybe she is, now, because she must be seeing things.

"Dr. Norman Lee," she corrects him. "Yes. I know him. He – he was my boss at Bellevue a few years ago." She gives Hurley a quick look, praying that he won't volunteer information about himself that she's beaten herself up over being unable to keep secret. My boss and maybe more than that? Who knows, really? It takes her a long moment to recover herself and get her composition back, to be able to concentrate on the world around her. During that moment, all Hurley and Michael can do is stare.