"Jack still isn't back," Juliet says to Sayid and I. "Anything?" Sayid stands looking out at the ocean for the freighter. I'm cleaning my new glock.
"No. But it's a big Island," Sayid says. "The freighter could be approaching from the other side."
"That's the spirit."
"Juliet, you lived amongst the Others. Why would Ben say the people coming here intend to do us harm?"
"Because he's a liar. And he's trying to scare us, that's what Ben does. Or, because the people coming here intend to do us harm." Juliet bends down next to me. "How many guns do you have left, Tia?"
"Sawyer only took the one. We still have five."
"Perhaps it would be wise of us to make sure Jack and Kate are alright out there," she says.
"I couldn't agree more," Sayid says. "Let's go."
Out in the jungle Juliet proves to be a fair tracker and we get Jack and Kate's trail almost instantly, but a third and fourth pair of boots accompany theirs. It doesn't take long and we spot them through the trees, keeping our distance. Jack and Kate are with a skinny man with a beard and a Chinese man through the jungle, the latter leading the way by a map on the sat phone. I notice that both of them have guns.
I make eye contact with Jack so that he knows we're here. Eventually, we're lead to Naomi's body, lying in the ground. The Chinese man kneels down beside her.
"The light is strange out here, isn't it?" the skinny man with the beard says, holding his glock in a very un-practiced way. "It's kinda, like, it doesn't scatter quite right."
"Dan, your name's Dan, right?" Kate says to him and he nods. "Listen, Dan. I know that you don't want anybody to get hurt, right? So why don't you just put that away?" She motions to the gun.
"Because, um, Miles would kill me," he says. I assume the Chinese guy is Miles.
"We're just trying to help."
"Kate, you're wasting your breath," Jack says to her. "Why don't we just let this play out and see what happens, okay?"
Miles stands up. "They didn't kill her. Happened like they said it did."
The sat phone beeps and Dan looks at it.
"It's Charlotte, only three kilometers from here."
"Alright then, let's go get her," Miles says, starting to move, but Jack and Kate don't follow. "I said let's go," Miles repeates.
"You need to put the guns down," Jack says.
"Now why would I do that?"
"Because our friends are out in the jungle right now holding a gun at your head, and his head. So I'm gonna forget about the misunderstanding. Just put the guns down." I follow Jack's lead and point my gun at Miles's head. Sayid covers him as well and Juliet holds Dan's head.
"Come on, how stupid do you think I—,"
But Miles is cut off as Sayid fires a bullet right above his head. He and Dan duck at the gunfire, but Kate and Jack stand their ground. Kate grabs Dan's gun out of his hand while he's distracted. Sayid, Juliet, and I emerge from the trees, making our presence known, my gun still on Miles's head.
"I don't know, Miles, how stupid are ya?" Jack says, talking the gun from his hand.
"Listen," Dan says, holding up his hands. "We just want to find the rest of our team. We know where Charlotte is, can't we find her, please?"
"Fine," Jack says, lowering his gun. "Lead the way." He turns to Juliet. "How did you guys know to come find us?"
"We were worried when you didn't get back so we went out to the cockpit and tracked you from there."
"Thanks for that, for what it's worth."
"Don't mention it."
"Someone could have told me that the cavalry were here," Kate says.
"I gave you that…that wink," Jack says, stuttering and Juliet grins.
I move up to Sayid, who's following Miles and Dan, who are leading the way by tracker on the sat phone. "What are your names?" he asks them.
"I'm Daniel Faraday, and this is Miles—,"
"Don't tell him my last name!"
"I guess it's just Miles."
"What do you do for a living, Daniel?" Sayid asks.
"I'm a physicist. Well, I guess you could call me a physicist, I don't really like being pigeon-holed into one—,"
"Dan, I swear to God, you say one more word, I'm gonna break your fingers," Miles threatens. I'm really not liking this guy.
"What do you do, Miles?" Sayid asks him.
"I collect soil samples."
"Oh, that's nice. Well, maybe you can help me. You say you're not here on a rescue mission, and the world at large believes us to be dead. But here we are alive and well, and you don't seem remotely surprised to see us."
Miles turns around and looks between the both of us. "Oh my God, you guys were on Oceanic Flight 815! Wow!" he exclaims sarcastically. "That better?"
"Sayid walks around him and over to Daniel. "May I see that?" he says, talking the sat phone from him without permission and we continue walking.
"I wouldn't mess around with that if I were you," Miles warns.
"It can't hurt to try and call someone else," Sayid says.
"Oh, it can hurt." The phone beeps and we all stop, turning to it. "What'd you do?" Miles asks.
"I didn't do anything. Your friend, Charlotte, she's moving. And she's moving fast."
"She's running from something," Jack says, looking at the phone.
The four guys take off and Kat, Juliet, and I follow, but they stop soon. "According to this, she's right here," Sayid says.
"Charlotte! Charlotte!" Dan calls.
"Over there, over there," Kate says as the bushes start to move. I raise my gun.
Which was pointless. Vincent comes out of the bushes, his leash still on his collar, Charlotte blinking tracker hanging from it.
"Locke's got her," Jack says.
Pop! I turn my head to the sky and everyone follows. A flare sounds up in the sky. "That must be Frank!" Dan says.
"Who's Frank?" I ask.
"Oh, so you do speak," Miles says, looking at me. "I thought you were just this one's puppy." He nods his head at Sayid.
Sayid punches him in the face. "What the hell!" Miles exclaims.
"Do not talk to her like that," Sayid says threateningly.
Wow, I didn't realize Sayid had that much respect for me, but I could have punched Miles myself.
The others stand by awkwardly, recovering from Sayid's outburst. Daniel coughs. "Um, it's Tia, right? Frank is our chopper pilot. He wasn't wearing a tracker, so he would have shot the flare."
"Then let's go get him," Jack says, heading in that direction. "If he's the pilot, the helicopter can't be far away."
We reach a man lying in the grass, a gaping wound on his head. "Is he alive?" Dan asks.
Jack bends down and grabs the man's wrist. "I've got a pulse."
"Frank? Frank? Hey, hey. Frank?" Daniel prods him.
Frank jumps awake and skids away from us in shock as Dan asks if he's okay.
"What happened?" Miles asks.
"We got struck by lightning."
"Frank, where's Charlotte?" Dan asks
"She bailed out just before we went down. I don't know where she is."
"Where's the chopper?" says Miles.
Frank spaces out for a moment. "I saw a cow."
Miles rolls his eyes and bends down next to Frank, snapping his fingers in his face. "Hey, hey, Lapidus, where's the chopper? Where did it crash?"
"Crash? The hell kind of pilot do you think I am? I put her down safe and sound, right over there," Frank says, pointing down the ridge.
Kate and I run over to the hill with Juliet, Sayid, and Jack behind us. There it is. A military grade helicopter. The same kind I few in in the army to rescue wounded soldiers.
Sayid runs down the hill and starts inspecting the chopper. Juliet takes Frank aside and starts cleaning the wound on his head. "Well?" Jack asks Sayid of the chopper.
"There's some minor damage, but the mechanical systems are intact."
"So it'll fly then?"
"Absolutely."
"Can I have the phone now?" Miles cuts in.
"Tell you what," Jack teases. "I'll give you the phone if you tell me what you people are doing here."
"I'll tell you what we're doing here if you give me the phone," Miles counters.
Jack reluctantly hands Miles the phone. "Don't say anything about your sister."
"What?" I ask, confused.
"It's their code for when they're in trouble," Kate says, heading over to Naomi's body, which we carried from the clearing.
I watch Miles phone the boat. "Regina, its Miles. I need to talk to Minkowski…It's important, go get him…Alright, have him call me when he can."
Miles hangs up and notices Daniel and Kate carrying Naomi's body to the chopper. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing with her?"
"We're taking her with us," Dan says.
"What's the point? That's not Naomi, it's just meat."
"Miles, we can't just leave her here."
"Miles is right," Frank yells from the other side of the ridge, where Juliet is cleaning his head. "We burned up most of the damned fuel flying around that storm. We barely got enough to get back to the freighter, we're not carrying any unnecessary weight. I'll take her on the next run. I promise, Dan."
There's a moment of small chatter as Kate grabs a blanket from Jack's pack and drapes it over Naomi. "Miles!" Frank calls.
"Yeah?"
"This is Juliet, and she was not on the plane." I turn toward him. Why would this be a prudent piece of information?
"What?" Miles says, shocked, walking toward them. "You sure?"
"You know how many times I studied that damn manifest? Believe me there's no Juliet Burke on that plane. She's a native."
"Really?" Miles says, then he advances on Juliet. "Where is he?!" he yells in her face.
"Back off!" Jack says, getting between them.
"Where's who?" Juliet asks, calmly.
"You wanna know why we're here? I'll tell you why we're here!" Miles yells, reaching into his pocket and producing a photo. "We're here for Benjamin Linus." The photo shows Ben at some kind of airport. "Now where is he?" Miles yells.
"Just calm down," I say, getting between him and Jack. "What do you mean you're here for Ben Linus?"
"I was hired by a man looking for him."
"Who?"
"Like I'd tell you, princess."
"Did Ben ever mention knowing anyone off the island?" Jack asks Juliet and she shakes her head. "You're sure of that?"
"No," Juliet says. "I've never seen him leave the Island in the three years I've been here."
"Look, this is real simple," Miles says. "Do you know where he is or don't you?"
"What do you want with him?" Jack asks.
"I want to locate him. The people who hired me told me his name's Benjamin Linus, I don't know anything else. They gave me the picture, that's all they told me. They told me 'find him,' and for what they're paying me I don't need to know anything else, do you?"
"Listen, if you really want Ben, he's with Locke and your friend—,"
"Charlotte."
"Charlotte. Locke's got her too. And we know where they're headed."
"Tia, what the hell are you doing?" Jack asks me.
"I'm getting us off this Island," I say. I turn back to Miles. "You want Ben and Charlotte, let's get this done."
"Locke's the guy who killed Naomi," Miles says warily, turning back to Jack. "Give me back my gun, Shephard."
"You want your gun back? I want answers. You don't trust me, I don't trust you."
"You're supposed to be dead. But am I asking a million questions? No. We both have the same problem, this Locke guy."
"Even if Locke has your friend, you can't just waltz in there and grab her. They're armed," Kate says.
"Well how 'bout that? So are we! So why don't we move out?" Miles says, turning back to me.
"You're not going anywhere," Sayid says, finally showing up. He turns to Frank. "Will that helicopter fly?"
"It's what she does."
"Then you can take me to your ship."
"Sayid, wait a second," I say, calming him down.
"We did call these people to get us off this island, didn't we?" He turns back to Frank. "Well?"
"We burned a lot of fuel coming in, it can't carry much weight. I'll take three of you."
"In case you zoned out while you were tweezing your goatee," Miles says. "One of these yahoos took Charlotte prisoner."
"Tia and I can bring her back safely," Sayid says. "And if I do, will you take me to the ship?"
"Absolutely," Frank promises. "You bring Charlotte back safe, and I will take you off this island."
Sayid moves to his pack and starts pulling out some papers. "Take a look at this," Sayid says to Jack. "Naomi had it with her." It's the picture of Desmond and his girlfriend, Penny. The woman whose boat this is not. "She was looking for Desmond. Whatever their real agenda is, it's clear they're not sharing it. Maybe Desmond can shed some light on this."
Jack turns to Juliet. "How long would it take to get to the beach and back?"
"A couple of hours."
"You mind?"
"Anything I can do to help."
"Sayid," Jack says, turning back. "So how are we going to do this?"
Kate stands nearby as Sayid and I exchange a look. "You're not the best candidate for this kind of mission." Sayid says.
Jack chuckles. "And what kind of mission is that?"
"I'm going to make Locke release Charlotte. And I'm going to do it without any bloodshed."
"As opposed to the way I'd do it."
"Well, Jack, if you'd recall the last time you saw him, you put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger," I say.
"That's not good diplomacy," Sayid backs me up.
Miles is wearing his pack, waiting for us. "Hey, Jarrah, you think you're going after Charlotte without me?"
"Of course not."
Miles is taken aback for a moment. "Oh. Well, good."
"Is there anything else?" Sayid asks with a small smile.
"Yeah, give me my gun back."
Sayid ignores him, walking away. "We leave in ten minutes."
It doesn't take long for me to get water from a stream just inside the trees and Sayid, Miles, and I are ready to go. "Got room for one more?" Kate asks, raising her hand, a glock inside of it.
"Oh, yeah, she gets a gun," Miles says sarcastically.
"Gun's a last resort, Kate," Sayid says.
"You give Locke that same speech?" she counters.
"Hey," Miles calls impatiently. "Let's move out."
"So what are you two," Miles asks, pointing between me and Sayid. "The Island's favorite couple."
"We're not a couple," I say.
"Oh, is that why you do everything he tells you, princess?"
I grin. "That's not gonna work on me. I can spot hierarchical manipulation from a mile away. In case you forgot, Miles, this trip was my idea."
"Who are you?" Miles asks. "What's your name?"
"Tia,"
"Tia what?"
I grin again. "Why do you want to know?"
"I'm curious."
"Tia Samuels," I say.
"Oh, the army chick."
I stop walking and face him. "How do you know that?"
"The boat did profiles on the Oceanic passengers. Your name jumped out. We've got a lot of army people on the boat." I look over at Kate and notice that she's become a little agitated.
"Naomi, were you close to her?" Sayid asks Miles.
"Nope. Met her on the boat."
"You don't seem particularly affected by her death."
"Sure I'm affected. She was hot and I dug her accent."
"Nice," Kate says, rolling her eyes.
"And this woman, Charlotte," Sayid continues. "You don't really care about her, do you?"
"Define care."
"So much for camaraderie."
"Yeah, gee, who's the one going after one of their crash buddies with guns? Actually, I do care about Locke," Miles says, stopping his walk and turning to Sayid. "Maybe you can tell me how he managed to split your happy little family in half."
Sayid glances at me, then explains. "There was a fundamental debate as to whether your people were coming to rescue us... or kill us."
"And which side did you land on?"
Sayid starts walking again. "I let you know when I decide."
We make it to the Barracks about thirty minutes later. We stand at the edge of the neighborhood and Miles takes in the surroundings. "What's with the swing set? These people have daycare?" he asks, but we ignore him.
"You think they're here yet?" Kate asks, looking at the apparently empty chain of yellow houses.
"Let's find out," Sayid says, walking into the Barracks. Kate and I follow, our guns ready. We hear a loud banging from the house to our right. Sayid draws his gun.
"It's coming from in there," Kate says, motioning to the house with her gun. We run toward the house and Sayid kicks the door down. Inside, it's completely destroyed, the couch torn up, the books flung off the shelves.
I hear a muffled shouting to my right, inside a closet door. Sayid motions to the door with his head and Kate and I cover it with our guns. The handles of the door are ties together with rope. Sayid unties the knot and opens the door, revealing something we did not expect.
Hurley is sitting on the floor of the closet, his wrists tied together and his mouth gaged. Kate bends down beside him and removed the gag, then starts on his hands. "Hurley, what happened?" she asks.
"They left me," Hurley says, a scared look in his eye.
"Come on," I say, bending down and helping Kate lift him. "Let's get you to the couch."
We sit him down and Hurley starts to explain. "Locke's gone off the reservation, man. I mean, he took this one chick hostage, he said Walt was the one who told him to kill the other chick, and, and he—,"
"Walt?" I ask. "How could he have seen Walt?"
"Dude, don't ask. I was, like, just trying to argue with him, so he would just like, you know, chill, but—,"
"How about you stop babbling and just tell us what happened to them? Where are they?" Miles says.
"Who are you?" Hurley asks, confused.
"Where the hell did they go, Tubby?"
"Oh, awesome. The ship sent us another Sawyer," Hurley says sarcastically.
"Hurley, where did they go?" Sayid asks him, patiently.
"Look, I guess they were too busy tying me up to tell me. I don't know."
"So they all left, all together?" Kate asks, bringing him a glass of water from the kitchen.
"Yeah, they were freaked. Locke said the people on the ship were here to rescue Charlotte and then kill us." Hurley turns to Miles. "So... are you?"
Miles grins from his chair. "Not yet."
Sayid ignores him. "Did they say anything that suggested where they were going next?"
"Um, Locke said they were gonna go by Ben's house before they took off."
"Why would they go there?"
"For all I know, they could have locked Ben up in a closet too."
"Where's Ben's house?" Miles asks, standing.
Ben's house isn't far from this one. Sayid noticed a lot of things while he was chained to the swing set in the middle of their camp. Sayid twists the knob and the door opens. We walk inside and it's eerily quiet. "Look for anything that shows where they might have gone. I'll start in here," Sayid says, looking around the living room.
Kate and I head down the hallway and we find four doors. One is a closet, the other a bathroom. Kate takes the bedroom on the right and I take the one on the left.
"It's obviously the room of a teenager. I remember Kate and Sawyer telling me that Karl was the boyfriend of Ben's daughter, Alex, who was, incidentally Danielle Rousseau's biological daughter that Ben had kidnapped. She helped them escape. This must be Alex's room.
I don't have much time to look around as I hear a gun cock behind me. I turn and Rousseau stands there, her gun pointed at my head. "Do not move," she whispers. "I'm sorry, Tia."
"Sayid! Tia!" I hear Kate call from behind the closed door of Ben's room.
I start to move, but Rousseau stops me. "Do not move," she says. "I need to take you to Locke." She motions with the tip of her rifle for me to walk out of Alex's room.
In the living room, Locke has Sayid at gunpoint and Miles by the scruff of his neck. Hurley stands off to the side. "Don't worry, Kate's fine," Locke says. "Good job, Hugo."
My jaw falls open in shock. Hurley lied to me? He tricked me? I feel so betrayed. "Sorry, dude," Hurley says, looking guilty.
Locke tosses Miles to the side and Rousseau covers him as well as me. "Take them to the rec room, please," Locke tells her, taking my gun from my hand. He points it at Miles. "Leave this one with me."
"Rousseau leads us out the door and across the yard of the Barracks. "Sorry, Sayid, nothing personal," she says. Hurley follows us, looking nervously at Sayid.
"I'm not going to hurt you, Hurley," he says.
"Yeah," Hurley hesitates. "I saw you snap that guy's neck with that break dancing thing you do with your legs. I think I'll hang back here."
Rousseau opens a door to a larger house, but inside it's not a house. There's a couch, a Ping-Pong table. It's basically a rec room. In the center of the room, an old friend is tied to a chair. "Well... I guess they're running out of jail space," Ben Linus says.
Sayid looks pissed that they put us in here with him. He starts rattling on the barred windows of the rec room. "I lost a dollar, you know," Ben says.
"How did you manage that?" Sayid says.
"I bet John that you wouldn't be stupid enough to fall for your friend as bait."
"What do you know about friendship?" I say, grabbing a chair and sitting in front of Ben. If I'm stuck with him, the least I can do is get some long overdue questions.
"I know it's no use having friends you can't trust."
"Why are you here?" I ask him.
"Jack beat me up, tied me up, then sent me away with John."
I smile. "You're a smart man. A manipulator. A talker. I've gathered that much from our little conversations back at the hatch. You wanted to get caught then and you wanted to get caught now. Why are you here, Ben?"
He smiles maliciously. "If I told you that, it wouldn't be a secret."
I pause as I stare into his large green eyes, pulsating with an evil that I cannot stand. I have more questions, but I notice Sayid shaking his head behind Ben so that he can't see. The look on Sayid's face is clear. This is not the time or place.
The doors of the rec room rattle and Locke walks inside, carrying a tray. "Iced tea," he explains, setting down the tray and pouring two glasses. "I thought you might be thirsty."
"I'm thirsty," Ben says, raising a hand, but we ignore him.
"I'm sorry about all the theatrics, but uh, I didn't know how many of you there'd be, or whether you'd be armed. I covered my bases," Locke explains, sitting in a chair.
"What have you done with Miles and Kate?" Sayid asks.
"Kate's with Sawyer. And Miles is somewhere else. "He's fine. All I did was ask him some questions."
"Did he answer any?"
"No."
"Did you have more luck with the woman you captured?"
"Not particularly," Locke says, glancing at Ben, then back at us quickly.
"Then why don't you turn her over to us?" Sayid asks.
"Why would I do that?"
"I agree that these people are liars and they're certainly not here to rescue us. But if I return safely with Charlotte, they'll take me to their ship. It's our best chance of finding out who they are and what they really want."
Locke sets down his glass of tea and stands, facing us. "Well, then, I can save you two a lot of trouble because Ben says he's got a spy on the boat."
I turn back to Ben, quickly. "Who?" I ask.
"It's a secret," he says maliciously.
"Forgive me," Sayid says. "But the day I start trusting him is the day I would have sold my soul. Give us Charlotte! Allow me to do things my way. Or war is coming, which we will both be powerless to stop."
"Why would I give you Charlotte for nothing?" Locke says.
"Oh, I think you misunderstood me. I never expected you to give her to me for nothing." Locke raises an eyebrow, but I know exactly what Sayid is going to propose. "You can keep Miles. I don't need him. I just need the woman." Sayid turns to me. "So you think that's fair, Tia?"
"Plenty fair to me, Sayid," I say, standing. "How 'bout it, John?"
Locke looks between us, then at Ben, then back to us. "Alright. Some with me."
He leads us outside the rec room and tells us to wait in front of the doors. He comes back three minutes later with a red haired woman. "What's going on?" she asks in a British accent.
"You're leaving with these two," Locke says.
"Where's Kate?" I ask.
"I ran into her on the way to get her," Locke says, motioning to Charlotte. "She says she's staying."
"If I find out you're lying," Sayid warns.
"He's not lying," Kate yells at us from a window. "Get her back to Jack."
"Where are we going?" Charlotte asks.
"We're taking you to Daniel and Frank," I say.
"What about Miles?" she asks.
"Miles is staying with me," Locke says, smiling.
"They're back!" Juliet shouts as Sayid, Charlotte, and I walk over the hill and see the group, which now includes Desmond.
"Where's Kate?" Jack asks us.
"She decided to stay," Sayid says.
"What happened to Miles?" Frank asks.
"We traded him."
"Traded him?"
"I promised you Charlotte, here she is."
Frank grins. "You cheated."
"Did I?"
"Yes, you did. Lucky for you that guy's nothing but a pain in my ass. All right. That gives us room for one more. Charlotte?"
"Go back? With all the fun I'm having here? No, I've got work to do."
"Seat's yours if you want it, Daniel," Frank offers.
"I... no, thank you. I think I should probably just stay with Charlotte."
"All right."
I turn to Desmond. "You going with them?"
"Aye. Someone's got to get us answers."
Sayid walks over, throwing his pack into the helicopter. "I can come with you," I say.
"No, I need you here," Sayid says. "Keep an eye on them," his eyes flash at Daniel and Charlotte. He turns to Frank. "You said we have room for one more?"
"Yeah, why?"
"We should bring Naomi home."
I help Sayid load Naomi's body onto the helicopter. I give him a hug. "Take care of yourself," I whisper in his ear.
"As long as you do. Don't let Jack test your patience."
I chuckle. "I'll try."
Desmond crawls into the front seat, next to Frank. "Desmond," I say, holding out my hand.
He takes it. "I'll see you in another life, yeah?"
"Hopefully in a few days on our way home."
"Like I said, another life."
I jump off of the chopper and it takes off into the sky, with a large gust of wind. I watch as my friend takes off away from me and I wonder if I'll ever see him again.