Chapter 12: The Devil You Know
Valerie received word from Richard that the surgery had gone well. It had been a relatively uneventful procedure. Jack had both Ethan and Juliet to assist, and Alex had hung around to keep him company as he came out of anesthesia.
"Some people will be by later to set up the medical equipment in his bedroom," Richard informed her.
"I guess I should clean a bit," she said, looking at the kitchen. The dishes had started to pile up and she clearly hadn't made any effort to clean the stovetop. "He always does them," she explained, gesturing expansively at the sink.
"Have you been drinking?"
"A little bit," she admitted, pinching her thumb and index finger.
"It's eleven," Richard informed her sternly.
"Well you know what they say, my old friend—it's five o'clock somewhere—not that time is real here," she told him, blinking. "You of all people…" she didn't finish the sentence. "I'll have a coffee, I guess."
"No more cigarettes. Air the place out. Alex will be coming home too. And you can start packing."
"Packing? Why?"
"Ben's surgery went well."
"And?" she replied combatively.
Richard stared back at her, as if the answer should be obvious. "You were here to make sure his surgery was successful," he explained slowly. "It's been done. He's going to make a full recovery. We don't need to keep you here. You can go."
She frowned at him.
"I have some other business here," she replied cryptically. "I've got a lot of cleaning to do," she mentioned, and started wandering back to the kitchen.
Richard reached out and grabbed her upper arm.
"Have you considered just telling us the truth about what you're up to?" he asked directly.
She cackled at him and shook her arm free from his grip. "I'll think about it," she replied, and slipped into the kitchen.
When Ben arrived that evening, the house was spotless, and Valerie had more or less sobered up. She'd showered, dried her hair, and made an effort to conceal the fact that she'd been a disheveled mess for the last couple of weeks.
"Hi," she said quietly, as Alex wheeled him through the door.
"Oh, you're still here," he noted dismissively.
"Yeah. I'm technically still your prisoner, I think."
"You can go," he said, without making eye contact.
"I've got a few things to wrap up. I'd rather stay, if that's okay."
He looked up at her, and she met his gaze. He was trying to read her, she realized. She raised an eyebrow at him, daring him to refuse her.
"Fine."
Alex glanced back at Juliet. Valerie caught the look that they exchanged, but she didn't entirely understand it.
She got out of the way while they set Ben up in his room. She was momentarily nervous as they started moving the furniture around, but she'd moved the envelope out from under the nightstand a couple of weeks ago. She'd put it back into her backpack and hidden it down in Ben's secret closet.
She'd found all sorts of old treasures that day—from his heavily used false passports to boxes that clearly hadn't been touched in years. She'd picked through his collection of curios, helped herself to the cartons of cigarettes, a little revolver, and a few wads of euros—just in case.
She'd found a dusty old box crammed into the closet's darkest corner—and she had realized upon opening it that Ben himself had likely not looked at it in decades. It was a box of his mother's things—a book, some letters to Roger, and her wedding ring set. Valerie had glanced down at her own rings, noting the oddity of the situation. Although their charade had ended weeks ago, she still hadn't taken them off.
She was fiddling with the rings when Juliet found her in Ben's office.
"I was just heading out," she said, sitting next to Valerie on the sofa. "I wanted to talk to you for a minute."
"Okay," Valerie replied skeptically, putting her book down.
"I haven't figured out what your game is—"
Valerie started to interrupt, but Juliet held up her hand.
"—but you've got him wrapped around your finger. Use that power carefully." There was something patronizing about her tone, but Valerie realized that it wasn't intended as a slight.
She laughed to herself, shaking her head. "Juliet," she said, "I haven't got him at all."
Juliet laughed. "Don't be so sure."
Valerie smiled tightly in response. Juliet had been the target of Ben's affections for a while. Valerie suspected this had made her prone to seeing an ulterior motive in his every word.
"What makes you so sure?" Valerie probed.
Juliet grinned to herself before answering. "Part of him suspects that you're here to ruin him. But here you are, reading in his office, sleeping in his house. He doesn't trust you, but he can't bring himself to control you."
Valerie shrugged slowly. "It's just another one of his little games, Juliet."
Juliet started to argue, but Alex appeared in the doorway.
"Is everything okay?"
"Juliet was just telling me what pills we're giving your dad," Valerie lied quickly.
"Just some mild painkillers and antibiotics," Juliet added, standing up. "He's doing well."
"What happened to Jack?" Valerie asked, turning to Alex.
"He's around—I think they set him up in someone's spare room? I'm not sure what the plan is."
Valerie glanced back at Juliet. "If you talk to him, thank him for doing this," she requested. "And Ethan—and thank you, of course."
Juliet's face shifted. She seemed taken aback by Valerie's sincerity.
"Sure," she said, lost in thought as she saw herself out.
Ben watched on with disdain as his daughter and their houseguest bonded over his post-operative care. Alex seemed to enjoy Valerie's colorful language and impish attitude—and Valerie seemed to relish the role she played with his daughter—the fun aunt, he mused.
To some extent, she'd just stretched the role she'd been playing before. They were pretending at being a little family—albeit one under the strain of deeply entrenched mistrust.
Though she'd given him no sense of what she was sticking around for, she was, admittedly, helpful to have in the house. She was unselfconscious in tending to him—happily checking his stitches and helping with his exercises. He supposed that it was not enough that he'd had the surgery. His recovery would need to be completely successful for her mission to have been accomplished. But there was more to it, he was sure of that.
He asked her to play chess with him. He thought that might be a way to see inside her mind—the way she strategized. She'd laughed gleefully at the suggestion, then defeated him mercilessly. The experience was unnerving—not because she'd beaten him, but because she anticipated his own gameplay so flawlessly. Nothing he did surprised her—even when he was surprising himself. He felt as though she was inside his head.
In his weakened state, he was hesitant to confront her—but he was also careful not to let her get too close. He held meetings with Tom, Richard, and the others away from his house, so that she couldn't spy on them. Holding the meetings elsewhere served an additional purpose—he was conscious of not seeming impotent. Remaining housebound would only deepen that perception; leaving home would counter it.
It was at one of those meetings that he learned about the Kahana.
Charles Widmore was preparing a freighter with a particularly skilled crew. He was planning something. Ben knew it would be personal, and he also knew Charles well enough to know that he'd risk burning the whole place to the ground if it that was what it took to win.
Ben recommended they take advantage of Michael's apparent post-island distress—get him some sort of role on Charles's freighter. He had nothing left to lose, it seemed—if the proposal was framed as an opportunity to save the friends he left behind, it had a good chance of being persuasive.
Jack was another problem. There had been some loose promises of getting him off the Island—and it was too late to pretend that freedom wasn't an option. They'd freed Michael and Walt, after all.
"Even if we offer him a way out," Juliet noted, "Jack won't take it. He couldn't leave his people behind. He'll take anything we offer him and use it as a bargaining chip to help them."
Ben agreed with her assessment—Jack couldn't stomach letting him die; he wouldn't abandon his friends. But he struggled to find an adequate solution.
In those private meetings, Ben also found himself fielding a number of concerned questions about his houseguest. It was best to keep an eye on her, he explained. He needed to find out what she was up to. Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer, the adage goes. His justification was met with some skepticism, but his assurances that the situation was controlled were accepted at face value.
Privately, he feared that the freighter was her real mission—that she was some sort of plant, making plays in advance to give Charles an advantage. Her little game on the beach had even afforded her the opportunity to gather information from the survivors. The sum of her actions didn't really support the theory—but it didn't really support her own story either, and laying low was precisely what a plant would do at this stage.
Valerie, for her part, seemed unconcerned that he was keeping her in the dark. He found her apathy suspicious, but he decided that his best play was to act as though the trust had been restored in the hopes that it might get her comfortable enough to let something slip.
If she was a spy for Charles, Ben reasoned, it would be worth extracting whatever information she had before killing her.
He was dreading that possibility. The idea of killing Valerie bothered him—more than it should. It wasn't that she was a woman, though that might have played some role in his discomfort. It was something else—some sense that it would be a truly abhorrent act, though he couldn't put his finger on why.
On the bright side, his healing proceeded much faster than Jack had predicted. He was up and walking again within the week. Jack himself was stunned at Ben's progress—though, he noted, nothing that happened on the Island really conformed to one's expectations.
Ben had hoped that the tumor was somehow responsible for his nightmare, but even with the tumor gone, the dream continued to haunt him. When Mikhail learned that Charles had hired mercenaries to crew the freighter, Ben tried to tell himself that it was a coincidence—that it had only been a dream—but he couldn't shake the sense that the freighter was a direct threat to his daughter's life.
In the absence of enough information about what was coming to develop a real plan, he devoted his time to restoring his relationship with Alex. After their heart-to-heart, he'd softened his stance on Karl, and Alex had—much to her own delight—convinced him to invite the boy over for dinner.
He sat glumly in the kitchen while Alex and Valerie worked on a roast chicken—the same recipe he'd made for Juliet. Valerie insisted that she didn't need him to write anything down, and she had help from Alex—who made for a surprisingly enthusiastic sous-chef.
Valerie caught him scowling at her and flashed him a grin. He wanted to believe it was sincere. In spite of everything, there was something pleasant about the happy mundanity of the scene—Alex trusted him again, and she seemed to like having Valerie around.
He worried what a betrayal by Valerie would do to the fragile bond he'd restored.
Karl seemed profoundly nervous when he arrived at the house. Alex ushered him in, and Ben made some show of being friendly and inviting.
The dinner went well—well enough that he let himself forget his fears for a while and was able to enjoy the happiness that his daughter exuded.
He watched from across the room as Alex and Karl did the dishes together—the boy shooting uneasy glances at him every few minutes.
"It's sweet," Valerie murmured, stepping up behind him.
"It's foolish," he replied reflexively.
She glared at him.
"I suppose it's sweet in spite of its foolishness," he conceded.
"All young love is," she mused. "Have you figured out what you're doing with Jack?" she asked, swiftly changing the topic.
"Not yet. Why do you ask?"
"You can't stall forever—eventually they'll try to rescue him."
"Rescue him?" Ben retorted. "From what? Running water and a roof over his head?"
"They don't know that—all they know is the cage you put them in."
"Do you have a solution to offer?"
"Give him a bigger fish," she suggested.
"A bigger fish?"
"Tell him that your plans to free him have been interrupted—that something worse is about to happen. Tell him you need his help—that his friends will need his help. The man can't resist a lost cause."
Ben felt a chill creeping up the back of his neck. She'd tried to be vague—but she was clearly talking about the Kahana. He briefly contemplated giving her the opportunity to walk back her suggestion, but he decided against it.
"What do you have in mind?" he asked tentatively, taking a couple of steps into the kitchen. He had a gun stashed inside a rarely used saucepan in one of the cupboards. He opened the cupboard and pretended to rummage around.
He wrapped his hand around the gun and waited for her to answer. She said nothing.
He drew it on her.
"You wouldn't be thinking of the freighter that's headed our way, are you Val? Because I just couldn't imagine how you'd know about that."
He realized that she was already holding a gun on him—he recognized the revolver from the stash in his closet.
"Oh my god, dad, what are you doing!?" Alex shouted, suddenly noticing the standoff.
"You should ask her," he replied calmly, tilting his head in Valerie's direction.
Valerie remained stony faced and silent.
Alex's eyes darted back and forth between them. "Val—what's going on?"
"Your dad has forgotten that I don't need him to tell me what happens around here," she replied, holding eye contact with Ben. "I already know everything."
"And how exactly is it that you know about the Kahana? I suppose you'll tell me that Jacob knows what Charles Widmore will be plotting before he even forms the idea?"
"I didn't say that."
"Then you're admitting that you're a mole?"
"A mole?" Valerie laughed. "For who? Widmore?"
"You know his daughter," Ben countered.
"Penny? No I don't."
"Can you guys just put the fucking guns down!?" Alex demanded.
"That's not what you told Desmond," Ben said, ignoring his daughter.
Valerie lowered her gun. She turned to Alex. "I only pulled it out because I knew he was going for his," she explained. "It's not even loaded."
She tossed the gun to Alex, who caught it midair. Alex checked the chamber and nodded, confirming it was empty.
Valerie turned back to Ben, her hands raised. "I lied to Desmond, Linus. I know of Penny Widmore. I'm not working for Charles."
"Then what are you still doing here?"
She frowned at him. She didn't answer.
He turned to Karl. "Tie her up," he ordered. "Zipties are in the top drawer."
"Dad, wait," Alex pleaded.
"Help him, please, Alex," he said.
Valerie rolled her eyes and held out her wrists.
Alex grabbed the zipties from Karl and secured her, glaring angrily at Ben.
"Would you tape her mouth shut too, Karl?" he instructed, still holding the gun on Valerie. "She's got a bit of a silver tongue, and we can't have that."
Karl obliged, glancing nervously at Alex whose expression subtly warned him not to try anything.
"Karl—I need you to go get Richard and Tom. Danny too—tell them we're going back to Hydra."
Karl ran out the door, obviously relieved to be out of the situation.
Valerie leaned against the wall and rolled her eyes again.
"Dad, what is going on?" Alex asked.
"Mm?" Valerie added, through the duct tape.
"I told you, Alex—she's not who she says she is. She knows too many things she shouldn't."
"So you're going to do what? Stick her in a polar bear cage? She's not out to get you!"
"Mm!" Valerie agreed, nodding.
"Something I should have done weeks ago," he replied. "We're going to get some answers."
Karl returned quickly—wild-eyed and out of breath, flanked by Ben's requested reinforcements. "Are you okay," he asked Alex.
"Yeah, I'm fine," she replied, shaking her head in bewilderment.
"It's time," Ben told Richard. Richard nodded, and guided Valerie by the shoulder out of the house.
They arrived at Hydra station in the middle of the night. She seemed uncowed by the situation—annoyed and a bit bored, but not afraid. She occasionally tried to talk with them through the tape, but her inarticulate mumbling was, fortunately, impossible to understand.
Ben led the group down a narrow hallway. She seemed to know where they were heading.
The door was at the end of the hall. Ben paused before opening it, pulling the tape off of her mouth.
"Room 23," she said, her voice sad. "Really?"
"You've been lying, Valerie. You've been lying this whole time."
She shrugged. "I'm here to help you. I'm not lying about that."
He ignored her, watching coldly as Tom and Danny strapped her feet into the chair's restraints.
She seemed to have accepted her fate with a stoic resignation. He doubted that she would be intimidated into a confession—he just hoped the room would disorient her enough to pry some answers out of her.
She locked eyes with him. There was something wholly unfamiliar in her expression—pity, he realized. She pitied him.
Danny flicked a switch, and the rapid flickering of the room's slideshow burst to life. Ben felt a twinge of guilt as he turned to leave.
"You'll regret this, eventually," she told him matter-of-factly. It wasn't a threat. There was no vengeance in her voice—only disappointment. "All I've ever done is help you."
He turned around angrily and walked back into the room. Richard tried to pull him away. "She's dangerous, Benjamin," he whispered, "you know better." Ben brushed him aside.
"Leave us."
Richard shook his head and raised his hands as if to absolve himself of responsibility. Tom and Danny followed him out of the room.
"And cut the recording," Ben added, gesturing at the cameras. Alpert nodded curtly as he closed the door behind him.
Valerie stared him down. "You're right that I've been lying," she told him matter-of-factly. "I was never here to convince Jack. You would have done that without me."
"I suppose you're going to tell me that you're here to protect me from Charles," he muttered.
She raised an eyebrow. "In a manner of speaking."
"You'll forgive me for not believing you," he replied icily. He pulled the gun on her, expecting her to shirk back in fear.
She didn't react. "You're not going to kill me, Linus." She wriggled her wrists out of the restraints, freeing her hands. Alex hadn't been particularly thorough with the zip ties, it seemed.
She bent over and nimbly unclasped the restraints at her feet, all the while staring unperturbed into the barrel of his gun. She stood up and took a few steps away from him
He followed, backing her into a wall.
Her eyes were daring him to pull the trigger, but she was right. He couldn't do it—and it infuriated him.
Ben's rage was always tightly controlled. He'd tamed it—trained himself to use it as a tool. He'd learned to let it fester under the surface—to let it become increasingly caustic until a moment he deemed worthy of releasing it. This was one of those moments.
He smacked her across the face with the gun—the full force of his anger and hatred behind the blow. She fell to the ground and slowly pulled herself back up, wiping the fresh blood from her cheek.
She spat on the ground and stretched her neck—but still, she didn't seem afraid.
"We can do this the stupid way, I guess," she quipped, already exasperated.
He had no time to respond. She took a sharp swing at him, her fist meeting his jaw with a powerful efficiency. She elbowed him in the gut as he buckled down. The gun clattered away.
He lurched back at her, fueled by raw fury.
He threw punches and grabbed at her—if he could only get his hands around her neck, he thought—have her by the throat—it would be over.
But Valerie was calm—expertly parrying and dodging each blow, anticipating his fists as well as she'd anticipated his chess plays—as if she'd faced him a hundred times before.
He realized that she was not trying to hurt him—since disarming him, her every move was defensive. She didn't even want to inflict pain to prove her point.
He had been raging at her with a fiery loathing, but Valerie was—at most—mildly annoyed.
He reeled himself in, pausing to catch his breath and reassess. She looked at him carefully and leaned against the wall, her chest heaving.
"Is it out of your system now?" she asked through ragged breathing, her tone vaguely patronizing.
He trudged towards her, winded by the exertion. He was still angry—angry that she'd lied to him, angry that he'd believed her—angry that he had trusted her enough to let it get this far.
He stopped—a breath away from her face.
She looked up at him—her dark eyes filled with a bold confidence. She glanced briefly at his mouth.
He was struck suddenly by a strange shift in himself—his need for violence slipped away and was replaced with another, deeper need—intense in all the same ways, but distinctly new.
He looked at her lips—curled into a smug smirk. The chaotic light of the room's hypnotic slideshow flickered in his peripheral vision.
His pulse was racing.
He placed his palms against the wall, one on either side of her head.
Her face grew serious. She slowly tilted her head up to meet his gaze, gently biting her bottom lip. He felt himself drawn towards her, as if by some magnetic force.
He became uncomfortably conscious of his own breathing.
She blinked deliberately, her eyes slyly wandering back down to his mouth.
He shuddered and took a step back, exhaling sharply as he regained his composure.
The smug smirk returned to her face. She knew she'd won.
He stood in silence for a moment, calculating a new way forward.
"Tell me, Valerie," he said finally, "if Jacob really sent you, and you're not working for Widmore, then why can't you just tell me the truth?"
"It's not that I don't want to—I do." Her voice was steady again, as if nothing had just happened. "I don't have a choice."
"What do you mean?"
"I can't tell you the truth, Ben. You wouldn't understand. You don't want me to tell you."
"Is that really your decision to make?"
"No, it's not—which is the point," she answered stubbornly. "There are things that you shouldn't know."
"Why can't you just tell me why Jacob really sent you? What does he want?"
Her jaw tensed, and she looked up at him. He was startled to see the confidence in her eyes replaced by a churning anguish.
"I don't know what he wants—I have no idea. I never met Jacob."
"What the hell are you talking about?" He felt the frustration rising again. "Who are you?"
She sighed, hesitating.
"That's the lie—the real lie. Jacob didn't send me, Ben. You did."