Note to those who have been so kind as to read this far: This is going to be the last long entry for awhile- I want to try to play with shorter, moodier, less plot-packed chapters for awhile – while hopefully still moving things along. Critiques (negative as well as positive, really) are welcome. For this chapter, I wanted to try to capture a little of that frenetic pace of those episodes where SO much was happening at once. I miss them.
If you don't want to review, please just tell me if you have a moment, something about where you're from and why you love LOST. The list of countries I see in the stats tool every month is such a thrill to me– the fact that people in Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Turkey, India, Pakistan, Mexico, New Zealand, Australia, Peru and other countries have read even a few words of this story makes me feel SO happy and lucky! I wish they broke down the US stats more, too. Anyway, thank you so much, again, for reading this far, and Namaste and good luck.
Ten minutes ago, Des and Mathias and the rest of Penny's crew had burst into The Staff carrying Bernard between them, some of them shouting for Annie and all of them looking around wildly for help. Seconds later Hurley returned with their new doctor, pulling her along by the hand. She ducked into the storage room and handed Hurley stacks of sheets, telling him to drape them over the table in the surgical ward while she went to Bernard and started looking over his gunshot wounds.
Rose came in a little behind the rest, walking in circles as all this went on around her. Eventually, Henrik realized she needed someone's attention too and started pacing the room by her side, one arm over her shoulder and he only stopped when Annie shouted for help getting Bernard to surgery.
Then most everyone was gone, and the little recovery room that had been so full of chaos was entirely silent. Penny was still sitting against the wall, looking a little dazed but finally not out of breath. Kate was lying on the cot, silently watching them both, as Rose kept circling the room. Then suddenly Kate reached over to her left hand with her right and pulled the IV out of it with one swift move, pressing the bed sheet against her hand as a little blood spurted out. She pressed down, checked, pressed, checked, until all was well. Then she tied her hair back and put on the sneakers sitting on the floor near her cot.
"Penny, will you stay with her?" She looked over at Rose as she asked, and Penny stood up, startled out of her own little pool of shock and went over to Rose, nodding.
"Where are you going?" Penny asked.
"Back to where Bernard got shot. Do you think you got them all? Whoever …whatever these gunmen were? Or could more still be out there?" She saw Penny shaking her head with a look of confusion and regret.
"I think… we missed one. I think only one is left out there," she said, leading Rose to a chair and sitting down on the floor next to her. "But I'm not sure." She tuned her attention to Rose, trying to cut through her state of shock and Kate took off for the hatch door. She saw Desmond and grabbed him by an arm, gesturing for him to follow her out for a second.
"I'm going back to the Flame, to see what I can find out about whoever was shooting at you and to look for any signs of survivors or clues," she was clambering up out of the hatch now and Desmond followed. "You don't have to come with me, but someone should know I'm going."
"I'll go," Des said. But he started walking toward the barracks rather than heading for the jungle toward The Flame. Kate called out for him to stop, but he just pointed the way he was headed and kept moving. "First, we need more guns." He pulled a pistol out of his pocket, aiming it up in the air. "And more ammo. Then we'll go. Okay?"
She nodded, following, and they ran all the way there. Desmond went straight to the one bungalow dedicated entirely to storage: Food, clothes, furniture, and a room full of guns and ammo well organized and set out.
"After this," Desmond tossed Kate a handgun and a box of bullets, pulled a rifle off the wall and started loading it. "I think we're gonna have to start locking these up. What do you think?" Kate just made a small sound of agreement. They were both so focused, that when they head a slight scuffling noise in the room behind them they both just spun around, weapons pointed, and froze when they saw Ben. He had his hands in the air and a 'please collect yourselves and don't shoot me' look on his face.
"Holy crap, Ben, what are you doing here?" Kate tucked her gun away, Desmond finished loading the rifle and the three of them left the bungalow. Kate had planned to leave Ben behind, but he was running with them before she knew it and when she started to object to him joining their party he stopped her with a dismissive wave and a shake of his head.
"I heard enough of what's going on," Ben said, "If someone is shooting at Bernard, or Hurley or you…. they're shooting at me, too." Kate, convinced or not, saw the look of determination on his face and nodded. " Plus," Ben said, "I still know this place better than anyone here. I might be of some help."
"Do you want a weapon?" Kate patted the gun in her pocket but Ben shook his head.
"I'll leave that to you two. We have our ways of disappearing into the jungle when necessary."
"You're going to have to teach me that," Kate said.
"One of us will. Maybe Richard." Ben said. "He's much better at it."
On their way, they passed close to the Staff again and speaking of 'out of nowhere' Hurley was suddenly there trying to catch up with them despite all the stuff he was carrying. He was yelling for Kate. They stopped.
"Are you out of your friggin' mind?" Was all Hurley had to scream at Kate. He saw she was half laughing, half annoyed at the question but he wasn't quite done yet. "You aren't supposed to get out of bed for another day, at least, you have to rest..."
"Hurley, I am FINE," Kate yelled with gusto, and threw her arms in the general direction of the entire island. If no one else was clued in to what the gesture meant, Hurley was. "I haven't felt this well in forever," she said, and he saw the color in her face and how, frankly, thrilled she looked to be in a group on their way to track something down together in the jungle. He just sighed, looked down, and handed Desmond a backpack and two torches.
"Bottles of water. And a two-way radio. And matches." Hurley said, pointing at the backpack. Desmond put on the backpack, and handed Kate and Ben the torches and they took off again. As they ran Hurley heard her yell, "We'll be okay. Help Penny and Rose."
Hurley walked back into The Staff and down the corridor toward the surgery. He couldn't bring himself to look fully at the scene playing out there, but he ducked his left ear, part of his head and one eye in and yelled for Annie.
"Any update? What can I tell Rose?" He asked.
"I have two bullets out," He could just see her, hunched over Bernard, "And I think there's a third. I'm still looking…" her voice sounded thin and stressed. Even a tiny glimpse of the scene made Hurley so woozy he had to stick his head in the hall to keep from passing out. "Tell her another half hour, forty minutes at most, I'll be out there. I just hope…." her voice trailed off.
"What do you hope?"
"I hope I didn't give him too much sedative. I'm a surgeon, not an anesthesiologist."
"It'll be okay," Hurley told her, knowing they both realized it might be or it might not be. "You're doing your best."
Hurley started to go to Rose and Penny, but saw from a distance that they were talking quietly with each other. He decided to leave them be, and he went back up and outside and sat on a log a few yards from the hatch. The sun was just about down now, and he realized the group headed for the Flame would be coming back very late. He wished he and Bernard had gotten web and phone connections set up in the barracks already, so he could get in touch with Sawyer and Eloise tonight. But even more, he wished Richard would come the hell back so he could grill him about what he had done, who these random attackers were, and when more enemies might be on the way.
Just as he was thinking that last thought, he heard a droning noise overhead and looked up. A small plane was dropping lower, coming in for a landing- nowhere near the Staff, though. Hurley saw pontoons, and realized it was coming in for a water landing.
Kate, Des and Ben had been running for a while to try to get to the Flame before dark, but as they got closer Desmond called for them all to stop. They agreed to walk from there, partly to try to avoid the attention of a wandering gunman if one was out there, and also to look for signs of anything else amiss. Kate and Ben walked a few steps behind Desmond, in silence at first, but then, while Kate's eyes were scanning near and far constantly, she had time to ask Ben a few questions.
"Hurley didn't get a chance to go into detail," she said. "But he did tell me Richard's up to something risky. That what all this is about?"
"I expect so," Ben said but didn't elaborate.
"And he told me you've lied to him at least once since he took over," She briefly looked at Ben and saw him wince. "Why'd you do that?"
"He asked me about a huge bang we heard and a bright light we saw the night you left. I suspected I knew what it was about, but I couldn't be sure. In fact I still won't know for sure until we talk with Richard again. I just didn't want to give him bad information," Ben said. "It was a lie of omission, that's all."
Kate nodded and looked him in the eyes.
"Don't do it again, okay? In fact, talk to him about it before he even asks you. You want us to believe we're a team now then put up or shut up, okay?" Ben said nothing and they walked in quiet for a few minutes more before Kate went on.
"These people who shot Bernard, Penny said it looked like the freighter people. Why would they be back? Is this time travel?"
"No," Ben said, "We killed all the freighter people, actually, three years ago. These are other versions of them."
"What the hell does that mean?"
"It's," Ben put one hand to his head as they walked, trying to figure out how to explain it best. "A very long story. But to boil it way down, when the Dharma Initiative came here in the '70s they were on a mission to find a loophole for the human race. Somewhere people could escape to if there were an all out nuclear or biochemical war. Another earth… or a series of them."
"That's what all these hatches are about?"
"Ultimately, yes, they were steps toward the end goal. And one of the hatches your people never found, the Weather Vane, it was all about that goal. Have you heard of the 'Many Worlds' theory?" Ben asked and Kate shook her head. "Many cosmologists believe the universe is endless, and because of that fact, they say if you go far enough out in it you'll find another Earth with you, me, all of us living on it. On ten of those other worlds everything and everyone might be very much the same, and on the eleventh it might be very different. One some of those worlds, maybe you died without getting off the island. In another, maybe the earth has two moons and you never left your hometown. And if you go further out you'll find another world where you're the Queen of England, and another, and…. Well, the Weather Vane was built on the idea that if these other worlds exist, there must be a way to connect them to each other and travel between them."
Kate stopped suddenly and when Ben looked at her he saw a look of both wild hope and horror on her face at the same time. Desmond had stopped too.
"You okay?" Desmond asked, but Kate ignored him and kept her gaze fixed on Ben who just shook his head slowly.
"You do not want to go there, Kate, or go to any of those other places. Keep out of this dangerous little game Richard is playing," He said, "At least as much as you can. You don't even know that he's alive on any of those other worlds, or that he even knows you if he is alive, or that he's ever been to the island there."
Kate looked rattled, looked away and started walking slowly again.
"I didn't… I wasn't thinking of..."
"Of course not. Very presumptuous of me." Ben said. "I'm sorry."
Kate led the way, then, and the three of them didn't talk for a good twenty minutes until they got to the Flame. They stopped for a second, looking around. There to their left sat the start of the new building Bernard and Des had been working on. Near it, piles of wood, their saws and toolboxes were scattered around and a few feet further three bodies in camouflage were lying in a jagged semi-circle where they fell.
The three of them walked over, and crouched over the bodies. Kate's nose wrinkled at the smell of decomposition, but it was nothing like the carbon-based rot she'd expected to smell. Desmond took the butt of his rifle and gently tapped the one at his feet. The hollow knocking sound was beyond weird and they all looked at each other.
"It's like a hard carapace," Desmond said. "It's like when a bug dies."
"Well, we know a few things," Ben broke it down. "They breathe the same approximate mix of oxygen and other chemicals where they're from, or they wouldn't have lived long enough to attack you. But they're not human, at least not exactly like us. I'm guessing their particular world might not be much use to us or ours to them. All the more shame for us all that they stumbled in here."
Kate had started wandering the area as he talked.
"You think that's it, they stumbled in?" She asked. Ben and Desmond were still crouched low, and Desmond was taking pictures with his cell phone to share with Hurley and whoever else he might need to see them.
"Yes," Ben said. "We'll have to get the details on how it all works from Richard, but that'd be my guess."
Kate was ready to say there was no sign of anything else nearby, they should walk on, when they heard it: The snap of twigs and someone or something headed their way. Desmond and Kate both wheeled in circles, trying to hear where the crunching sounds were coming from. It had started to get dark, but they hadn't taken the time to light the torches and so they couldn't see much in the deep blue air. Then, they caught sight of some motion and both aimed their guns to the north, perpendicular to where they three of them had just walked in.
"We might be outnumbered," Kate said quietly to Des and he nodded. They braced themselves, ready to fire as the sounds turned into shadows and then took shape. But they didn't fire, because the three people walking their way had their hands in the air, torches lit in one of them and the others clearly weapon-free.
"Richard?" Ben asked just as the arrivals came close enough for them all to see it was, indeed him. Kate nearly laughed out loud with relief when she saw Frank Lapidus just behind him, but then gasped when Frank stepped to one side and there stood Walt.
And then, despite her surprise at seeing him, it dawned on Kate that one more question had to be answered before they could put down their guns.
"Richard, if this is the you we all know, then say why you did it. Why did you set off the Weather Vane?" she asked.
Richard turned a very annoyed look on Ben.
"You told them?" he asked and Ben just shot him a wan smile and a shrug.
"It's time, Richard. No more secrets among friends. Your little secret, your decision, got Bernard shot. He's in surgery right now."
Ben waved toward the lifeless bodies a few yards away, and the look of shock and disappointment on Richard's face was almost enough to make Kate feel bad for him – until she considered it never would have happened if he hadn't done what he'd done.
Kate took a minute to walk over to Walt, giving him a hug and asking if he was okay. He just nodded, and she could see the mix of confusion on his face with something else- maybe, actually, happiness at being back. She walked him over to Desmond, introduced him and asked him to follow Des as they walked home.
Then they all started out, Kate pulling Ben and Richard back a couple of paces from the others and nearly hissing at Richard.
"Seriously, a boy barely 14-years-old and you brought him back here, took him from his home to come back here?"
"We need him," Richard said and nodded ahead toward Walt emphatically. "Believe me, when you hear the full story, you'll know- we need him here."
"I will hear the full story," Kate said, "And I sure hope you can prove what you did is for the good. And two more things: One, Penny thinks they missed one of these gunman, we may have someone still out here we have to deal with, who may be tracking us even now. And two, you'd both better stop acting like you're in charge and start really doing things entirely on Hurley's behalf or I'll make sure I'm on the team that's in charge of kicking you until you get it straight."
Ben looked at Richard, his eyes wide with "How you like that?" in them. Richard said nothing and looked straight ahead. No one said another word all the way back to the Flame, except for Walt, who was happily telling Desmond all about the trip from Los Angeles.