Chapter 17: A Vigilant Watchman
Sawyer was out of breath and wild-eyed as he tried to explain to Ben what was going on.
"James—slow down. Where's my daughter?"
"I don't know—Valerie said she was safe. I think she didn't tell me in case we got captured—I don't know."
"And what did she want me to do?"
"Leave."
"Leave this place? This is the safest place on the Island," he replied, gesturing at the wall of the Temple.
"It's the other people," Hurley explained softly. "They're looking for you. If they find you here—everyone else is in danger."
"She said you should go home," Sawyer added.
"Did she say why?"
"No, but I think she had a plan."
"You think?"
Richard emerged from the Temple, tailed by Locke.
"What's all this?"
"They blew up the Looking Glass," Ben explained calmly. "The survivors had gone in to unjam the signal. There were a couple of them inside at the time."
"Who?" Locke asked sharply.
"Charlie—and Hurley's friend Libby."
"Oh. I'm so sorry Hugo," Locke said.
Hurley sniffed back tears and tried to hide his frown. "Thanks dude," he answered grimly.
"So, Valerie wants me to meet her at my house?" Ben asked again.
"I don't know," Sawyer repeated. "That's where she wanted me to tell you to go."
He glanced at Richard. "What do you think?"
"It could be a trap."
"I suppose it could. What are the risks if I stay here? Do we risk losing everyone?"
"They've been blowing stuff up, Glasses," Sawyer interjected. "I'd say that's a pretty big risk."
Richard nodded. "He's not wrong."
"I'll go," Ben decided.
"I'm coming with you," Locke offered.
"You don't want to stay here?"
"I want to talk to Jacob, Ben. Valerie's my best shot at that, apparently."
Richard glanced meaningfully at Ben.
Ben shrugged. "Suit yourself. I could use backup if things go south."
"I'm coming too," Sawyer announced. "I don't know what she's planning, but if you could use an extra trigger finger, I'm in." He turned to Hugo. "Hurley, stay here."
"No man, I'm coming with you."
"It's dangerous, Hugo," Ben warned.
"I just watched my best friend and my girlfriend die," Hugo replied. "I know I'm not going to be much help—but I can't sit around hiding."
Sawyer nodded.
"We better get going, then," Ben told them. "Richard—you're in charge. Do whatever you need to do."
"I will," Richard answered, a deep tiredness in his voice. "You're not taking the tunnels?"
"Charles knows about the tunnels. If we bump into those mercenaries while we are underground, there'd be nowhere to hide. It would be a massacre."
"You're right," Richard agreed. "Good luck," he added. "I think you'll need it."
The group traveled back to the Barracks as quickly as they could. There did not appear to be any signs of the mercenary crew when they arrived—nor any signs of Valerie.
Ben led them into his house and shut the door. He rushed around the house drawing the curtains shut. He shuffled into his office and moved a bookcase, revealing a small stash of rifles. He handed one to John and another to James.
"Did you want one, Hugo?" he asked, sensing the man's discomfort.
"No thank you," he answered.
"Now what?" John asked.
"Now we wait, I suppose. Would you like to play a game of chess?"
Hours passed without incident. John was down two chess games to three. Hugo was taking a much-needed nap on the couch, and Sawyer had started picking at the contents of Ben's fridge.
"Someone's coming," Sawyer announced, noticing a movement outside.
Ben glanced out the window in time to see a man hurtling across the lawn and onto his porch.
The man started banging frantically on the door. "It's Miles," he announced, "I'm from the freighter."
"He was with Valerie," Sawyer explained, opening the door.
Miles tumbled in, clutching at his stomach as though he'd just been punched in the gut. He thrust a walkie-talkie into Ben's hand.
"He wants to talk to you."
"Who?"
"The man in charge of the mercenaries."
Ben frowned at him. Pieces of the situation felt uncomfortably familiar.
He pressed a button on the walkie. "Hello?"
"Am I speaking to Benjamin Linus?"
"You are."
"My name is Martin Keamy," the mercenary explained. "I'm an employee of Charles Widmore." Ben's blood ran cold at the sound of his voice.
"I know who you are, Martin Christopher Keamy," Ben replied. "You spent five years as a Marine—distinguished service, honorable discharge. But since then, you've been a bit less than honorable, haven't you? You've worked with a number of mercenary organizations, doing all sorts of unsavory things in East Africa. We can dispense with the formalities, Mr. Keamy—I know exactly who you are."
There was a long pause before Keamy answered.
"Alright, Mr. Linus. Here's what's going to happen. You're going to step out the front door, put your hands above your head, and walk straight to me. Once I have you, then I promise you that no one else in that house will be harmed."
"You and I both know that once you have me, there's nothing to stop you from killing everybody else on this island."
"Why don't you take a look out your east window so that we can establish exactly what the stakes are."
Ben hurried over to his kitchen, and drew back the curtain. He looked out the window to see Keamy dragging a woman by her hair across the lawn.
Alex.
Valerie had failed to stop this, but at least he knew what he had to do. He held up the walkie, waiting anxiously for Keamy's next message.
"I didn't know you had a wife, Linus. But if you don't get your ass out here right now, I'm going to kill her." Keamy forced the woman to her knees and jerked her head up to face the house.
It was Valerie. She'd taken Alex's place.
She made eye contact with him and nodded. He wasn't sure what that meant. He was relieved that his daughter wasn't being dragged out at gunpoint, but he didn't know with certainty that Alex was safe—and he couldn't let Valerie sacrifice herself for him like this. He wouldn't let that happen.
"What do you want?"
"Surrender yourself," Keamy replied, and forced the walkie in front of Valerie's mouth.
"Alex is okay, Ben," she told him.
He exhaled.
"She's with her mother. Don't do what he says, okay? Just do—what you did. I promise it will be fine."
Keamy yanked the walkie away, pushing his gun against the back of Valerie's head. "Only chance, Linus."
He hesitated for a moment, knowing how his hubris had cost him Alex. He didn't want his last words to Valerie to be dismissive and cruel. But he trusted her, so he did as she told.
"She's not my wife—she's just some woman who crashed on 815 with the rest of them. She's no one. She fooled you to keep herself alive. She means nothing to me."
"Nice try, but I got the proof. Ten seconds."
"There's no proof, she's really not—
"Nine."
He stared blankly.
"Eight."
Familiar words came spilling out of his mouth. "I'm not coming out of this house—so if you want to kill her, go ahead and do it."
Keamy pulled the trigger. Ben's heart dropped out of his chest.
But nothing happened. Valerie smirked. In Keamy's moment of confusion, she pulled the knife strapped to his leg out of its sheath and stabbed him in the upper thigh. He buckled to the ground. She pulled the blade out of his leg and stabbed him decisively in the throat.
She drove the blade in until the hilt was just under his chin. Then she yanked it out, dropped it, and started running.
Ben grabbed a rifle and ran out the door.
"God damnit, Glasses," Sawyer swore, and followed him outside.
The mercenaries were firing at Valerie as she ran. Ben and Sawyer fired back at them, giving her enough cover to make it to the door. She tripped and fell near the steps, but managed to pull herself up and stumble through the threshold.
Ben and Sawyer made it back inside, the door slamming behind them. The shots continued. Sawyer resumed firing back at them from the window. Ben rushed over to Valerie.
She had pulled herself up and was sitting with her back against the wall. She was covered in blood. Most of it was Keamy's—but not all of it. She hadn't tripped. She'd been shot.
She clutched his arm and gritted her teeth. She noticed him looking with alarm at the bullet wound under her collarbone.
"It's okay, Ben. It's fine."
He tucked errant strands of hair behind her ear, and his fingers continued their path to the nape of her neck. He held her head in his hand. She looked up at him, her gaze steady and reassuring. She had done what she had come back here to do.
He was suddenly overwhelmed by the urge to kiss her. It seemed misplaced, given the circumstances, and he wasn't sure where it had come from. It was the adrenaline—his heart was pounding out of his chest and he could barely breathe. But it was also her—her face, bloodied and serene—the unwavering trust in her brown eyes.
He held a trembling hand against the side of her neck and wiped some of the blood from her face with his thumb.
Part of him was afraid to close the space between them, but he did it anyway, his mouth crashing into hers with a nervous relief. The electric newness of the sensation struggled in his mind against a sense of comfortable familiarity.
She kissed him back, wrapping a blood-soaked arm around him.
Sawyer shot a surprised glance at Hurley. Hurley shook his head, equally confused.
Valerie pulled away after a moment. "You have to go call the smoke, hon," she told him gently, brushing her fingers along his temple. "They're still out there."
Ben stood up in a daze and wandered into his office. He opened the bookshelf that concealed the hidden room, and made his way down to the basement.
Sawyer raised an eyebrow at Valerie. "Really?"
She smiled. "It's complicated."
Hurley had called for reinforcements shortly after Valerie had arrived. Desmond would be able to bring what they needed to fix up her boat. Coordinating that sort of thing was complicated, especially with a ten-year-old in tow. It had taken more than a year for them to make the trip.
They'd arrived in mid-November and—at Hurley's request—had brought a frozen turkey and everything else necessary to make a thanksgiving dinner. Valerie had a family recipe and had argued with Ben about who would cook the dinner until they had compromised and figured out that the recipes were similar enough that they could just share the responsibility. It had, fortunately, turned out remarkably well.
It was interesting, Valerie thought, to watch their guests interact with each other. Penny, of all of them, seemed the most comfortable with everyone. It wasn't necessarily genuine, but she was warm and engaging. Desmond was obviously fond of Hurley, and had a soft spot for Walt as well. But he eyed Ben with mistrust—well-earned, she understood.
As for Valerie, Desmond seemed oddly perturbed by her presence. He didn't seem to know why, but there was something about her that confused him. She caught him frowning at her several times. If she had to guess, he was trying to place her face. She was fairly sure they hadn't met, but perhaps she looked like someone he knew.
Charlie, for the most part, was shyly hiding behind his mother.
Ben sat quietly in the corner. He'd made a deliberate decision to put distance between himself and everyone else, conscious of the tension between himself and their guests.
She'd been looking at him all evening. Their eyes had met a few times and he'd smiled grimly at her. She knew that he was wallowing in guilt over what had happened with Penny, and she suspected that watching the pair of them with Charlie had also stirred memories of Alex.
Penny had chatted with Valerie—a superficial discussion about cooking, and the weather, and how difficult it could be to live in a place like this. Valerie had nodded, and chatted along—but for some reason, she felt strange about the conversation. She carried some of Ben's guilt, she realized. Her friendship with him didn't make her complicit in what he had done, certainly, but she had accepted him in spite of it—and that, of course, meant that she tacitly accepted what he had done to Penny and her family.
Penny didn't seem to think so. She seemed worried about Valerie, and she peppered the conversation with a number of pointed questions—if she was okay here, if she was looking forward to leaving—questions that Valerie suspected were driven at determining the nature of her relationship with Ben.
Eventually, she excused herself from the conversation to start doing the dishes. She took her time with the scrubbing and rinsing, primarily because it kept her occupied and uninvolved in uncomfortable discussions.
Out of nowhere, Charlie wandered over to Ben and held up a book that he had pulled off of Hurley's shelf. Ben looked up sharply across the room. Desmond started towards him, but Penny took him by the arm, pulling him back. She nodded at Ben, smiling softly at him. He shifted over in his seat. The boy sat down next to him and cracked open the book, quietly leaning against his shoulder.
Valerie looked over at Penny. "Thank you," she mouthed.
Penny raised an eyebrow and tilted her head, a hint of a smirk playing on her lips.
Valerie grinned a little and shrugged back at her. Penny's smile broadened slightly, and she turned back to Desmond.
The evening dragged on for a while. Charlie fell asleep on the couch, and Ben made sure not to disturb him as he rose. He wordlessly joined Valerie in doing the dishes.
She could hear a murmured exchange behind them.
"Is that…?" Desmond whispered
"No, no—not like that," Hurley replied.
Penny laughed. "Well maybe not yet."
She smiled to herself. Penny had figured it out, of course—though she seemed to have some sense of inevitability about the whole thing that Valerie didn't share.
Ben seemed oblivious to her feelings for him, despite all she had done to make it obvious, and being so close to him like this—it was exhausting. She politely excused herself after the dishes were done.
Her gaze lingered on Ben as she left. He noticed, but he looked away. She sighed as she walked out the door.
Ben's fifty-first birthday was just around the corner. It was hard to believe that she'd been here for more than a year. The Island was sort of a seasonless place. The days seemed to bleed into one another in a way that made the whole year feel like a few days—or a lifetime.
When she got back to her bungalow, she took a hot shower and dried her hair. Tomorrow would be a new day. Part of her wanted to stay awake—do something exciting—but the night had tired her out, so she went to bed even though it was still fairly early.
She drifted out of sleep in the middle of the night. Her first instinct was to try to go back to sleep, but it didn't come easily. She checked her clock. It was nearly two, and she felt wide awake.
She blinked a few times, yawned, and got up. She went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. She sipped it slowly as she walked towards her window. There was a full moon—and so much light that she could see the entire compound.
She wasn't the only one still awake. A light was on in Benjamin's house, across the way. It was dim—a lamp in his office, she decided. He was up—reading, presumably. She wondered if he'd slept at all, or if being around Desmond and Penny was rendering that impossible.
She watched, longingly, for quite a while. Part of her wanted to walk over there and knock—finally get all of this off her chest. But she wasn't bold enough for that.
Eventually, the light went out. She thought that he must have gone to bed, but moments later he stepped outside. He hadn't changed since dinner. She watched him walk across the green, and down the path that meandered towards the beach.
She thought about following him, but she knew it was a bad idea.
She went back to the bathroom and washed her face with cold water. She stared at her reflection—bleary eyed, but looking more like herself than she had in a long time. The sun had been good for her—the smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose and cheekbones suited her face. And the gaunt, drained look that she'd earned over the last several years had all but disappeared. She brushed her hair and decided that she was satisfied with her reflection.
Some part of her had already decided that she was following him to the beach. She needed to have that conversation with him—to ask him if he'd really almost kissed her that day by the Pearl, or if it was all in her head—to ask him if he wanted her to stay.
She threw a dress on, and a sweater, and slipped out her door.