"Sayid!"

Sayid looked up. He had been sitting by his tent, separating some tangles wire he'd found stored in the hatch. He supposed he could use it somehow but was untangling it as Charlie came sprinting up the beach towards him.

"What is it?" Sayid asked, immediately seeing the terror in Charlie's eyes.

"The hatch!" he gasped, holding his chest as he gasped for air. "It's gone!"

"What?" Sayid stood. "How?"

"Come on!" Charlie turned and hurried away, Sayid closely behind him. They met up with Claire halfway to the hatch and she followed them, clutching Aaron tightly, her hands trembling.

They reached the enormous pile of debris and Sayid looked around confusedly.

"There is no way it could just disappear. It would take a blast of great force to destroy it, and we would have felt it," Sayid went up to the large mound and began pulling branches off.

"That white light," Claire inquired, her voice shaking slightly. "Maybe it was that."

"That wasn't an explosion," Sayid shook his head, continuing to pull down large branches and clumps of hardened soil.

"Then what was it?" asked Charlie quietly.

"You tell me," Sayid turned to face him. "Weren't you in the hatch when it happened?"

Charlie thought hard but he didn't remember anything like that. The last memory of the hatch he had was seeing Eko carrying dynamite. But a few sticks of dynamite couldn't destroy the hatch.

"Find Locke," Sayid ordered, continuing to dig through it. "And Mr. Eko, and anyone else who can help us. We need strong hands."

Charlie nodded and took off towards the beach. Claire stayed for a moment, looking unsure. Sayid turned, having felt her stare on his back.

"It's okay. Take Aaron and go back to the beach. We'll let you know," Sayid turned away from her and waited for her to walk away. He felt nervous, completely unsure of what he would find when they finished digging this out.

"Sayid!" Charlie returned half an hour later, his face beet red. He came to a stop behind Sayid and fell to his knees, panting. "I can't find Locke or Eko."

"What about anyone else?" asked Sayid, turning around and wiping his brow. His hands were filthy up to his elbows.

"They heard Claire talking and are afraid to come. I think Locke and Eko may have been inside."

"Keep going."

The voice behind Sawyer and Jack urged them forward down this long brightly-lit hallway with many doors on each side, all locked and the windows shaded. Sawyer walked beside Jack, occasionally glancing at the doctor for any sign of fear or hesitation but he showed none.

"Stop."

They came to a half. Jack looked over at Sawyer, seeing he did look terrified. They had stopped outside one of the rooms.

"You first," Tom gripped Jack's arm and opened the door, pushing him inside first. "You wait out here."

Tom slammed the door on Sawyer and the younger girl, who was holding a gun. She looked nervous and Sawyer knew he could overtake her in a second. But it wasn't worth Kate or Jack getting hurt for his stupid ideas. Beside, there were probably cameras.

"Tough break," Sawyer said, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall.

"What?" asked the girl.

"Tough break at this job. What, look in the wrong newspaper, sweetheart?"

She looked confusedly at him and then back at the door as though avoiding the question.

"Sawyer, right?" asked the girl, seemingly interested. Sawyer nodded and she looked away. "Yeah I've heard about you."

"Heard about me? From what, Entertainment Tonight?" snapped Sawyer. He already knew that the Others knew a lot about them but wasn't sure how much.

"You're a jackass," she said simply. "Trust me, I've heard."

"Well trust me, you people think you know everything about us from sending cowardly spies in to trick us. Well, Napoleon, things aren't as they seem," Sawyer was disgusted and turned away. "You don't know what we're capable of."

"Obviously not of realizing a trap when it's right in front of you," she hissed. She was quiet for a moment and then spoke again. "Is Claire okay?"

"Claire?" Sawyer was confused. How did this girl know Claire? "Uh…yeah I guess."

"So she had the baby?" suddenly this girl was extremely curious, lowering the gun and looking up at Sawyer with wide eyes. He realized she couldn't be any older than sixteen. "Was it a boy or a girl?"

"A boy," he was puzzled. "But how did you…"

Suddenly Sawyer realized. Claire had been taken by them, by Ethan. She had probably been brought here or somewhere else and this girl must have seen her.

"I helped her get out," said the girl. She looked suddenly satisfied. "I'm glad she's okay."

"Why would you help her?" asked Sawyer bluntly. "Aren't you…"

"One of them?" she looked away suddenly. "I suppose not."

"You got a name?" Sawyer asked. She looked at him and he shrugged. "Hey, you know mine."

"Alex," she said quickly, gripping the gun a little tighter. "My name is Alex."

Jack was sat down at a long metal table where he put his hands on the cool surface. A small lamp was on the wall and barely lit the room. Tom paced for a moment before turning to Jack.

"What kind of doctor are you?" he asked, crossing his arms.

"A neurosurgeon," Jack said simply. His heart was pounding as he sat here.

"Have you ever amputated a limb?"

Jack was shocked at the question and remembered how he was about to cut off Boone's leg when Boone asked him not to. Jack's heart jarred at the thought and he tried to push it away.

"No. I do brain surgery, not amputations," replied Jack, looking hard at the man in the khaki clothes before him as though staring him down.

"But if you had to, could you without killing a person?"

"What does this have…"

"ANSWER THE QUESTION!" shouted Tom, causing Jack to jump.

"If I had the right tools and a sterile room, maybe," Jack said angrily. "But I can't guarantee anything."

"We have some sick people here, Jack," said Tom, pacing. Jack saw the man's bare feet and wondered why they were even pretending. "And our last doctor was killed."

Jack wasn't about to ask how.

"We need you to do some things for us. If you cooperate, things will be easy for you. If you make it difficult, well, let's say it won't be only you who suffers," Tom leaned on his hands on the table and leaned towards Jack. "Understand?"

"You want me to be a doctor for your people?" Jack demanded.

"No, I want you to do what we ask you to do with no questions asked," Tom straightened and crossed his arms. "All our attempts, even with our doctors have failed because they aren't skilled enough."

"Who are these procedures done on?"

Tom just laughed and shook his head.

"That's really none of your business," smirking, he came around the table. "Here's your proposition. You do what we ask, we let her live. You don't, we kill her and let you watch her die. Deal?"

Jack was still I shock as Tom wrenched him from the seat, a gun pointed in his side and pushed him towards the door. When it opened, Sawyer and the girl looked at Jack as he came out into the hall.

"Now you," Tom said, holding the door open for Sawyer.

Kate looked up, her neck aching. She had sat against the wall for so long that she'd fallen asleep with her arms on her knees and her head down. Now she looked around the still dark room and felt dread sink deeper into her stomach.

Standing up, she felt her stiff back creak as she walked stiffly to the door. Looking through the tiny window, she could see nothing but blurred light. She wondered where Jack and Sawyer were, and whether they were okay.

Suddenly there was a click of the door. Automatically Kate backed up against the opposite wall. For a moment she was sure someone was coming in to get her but surprisingly, it was Jack and Sawyer being shoved back inside, the door slammed behind them.

"Thank god," she breathed, capturing Sawyer first in an enormous hug. "I thought you weren't coming back."

"We did," Sawyer said, hugging her back and letting go of her so she could go to Jack. He hugged her but numbly, and his eyes were far off. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Where have you guys been?" she asked desperately.

Jack and Sawyer exchanged a look. After the questioning, both had endured a long session of health exams that neither wanted to relive. Sawyer had cut his short when he grasped the nurse by the throat and had to be hit until he let go of her. It was for reasons that he was not going to tell Kate.

"They haven't come back for you?" Jack asked curiously.

"No," she looked almost frantic. "I thought maybe they would but they never did."

"Don't get jealous," Sawyer laughed. "It's nothing special."

Jack looked at her, not believing that she was only there as leverage for him. Sawyer hadn't told Jack what Tom had said to him in the room, but Jack knew why he himself was there. He was a doctor and these people probably didn't have anything above a high school education. People were probably dying during experiments and they needed someone to keep them alive.

"What did he say to you?" Kate asked when Jack told her they had been questioned. "What did he ask?"

"What kind of doctor I am. They need me for their experiments, because people keep dying," Jack crossed his arms and leaned heavily against the wall.

"Sawyer?" Kate looked at him.

Sawyer looked at her sadly and shrugged.

"I don't know. He just said if I didn't behave he'd kill you two," Sawyer shrugged. "Basically it."

"Same here," Jack mumbled. But Tom had been specific and Jack knew Sawyer had no idea exactly what he meant.

"What now?" Kate asked after several moments of silence.

"We wait," Sawyer slid down the wall to sit on the floor.

"CHARLIE!"

Sayid had struck something with his makeshift shovel. Charlie came scrambling over the dirt to where Sayid was, and looking down they saw a sliver of medal below the dirt.

"Maybe it's the door!" Charlie exclaimed.

Sayid began uncovering it, using his hands to scoop the dirt out. Charlie helped, moving the sides of dirt away. As they uncovered it, it was obvious it was the door into the hatch, but as they uncovered it they realized it had been unhinged and was singed around the corners.

"How?" asked Charlie breathlessly as Sayid brushed away the last bits of dirt on the large metal door. "What could blast it out?"

"It wasn't blasted out," Sayid said. "It was pulled in. Look at the corners, they're bent. Almost like it was sucked inside the doorframe and then blasted out."

"Do you think Eko and John are still alive?" Charlie asked worriedly. He looked terrified as he stared at Sayid, covered in dirt.

"We need to keep digging," Sayid avoided the question. "Come on."

Sayid wasn't about to explain to Charlie that whatever had bent a two inch thick metal door was probably much stronger than anything they had on this island and that the kind of force to do that, could have crushed the hatch into itself. No, he would tell him that later.