Walter Lloyd was done school for the day. He ran full speed down the stairs toward the subway and was throwing his backpack over his shoulders when something made him stop. It was a glimpse of a familiar face.

Walt turned in a slow circle and then stopped again. Standing about 25 yards to what had been his left was a man in a dark suit and a tie. He looked like he could be one of the school administrators or a businessman on his way back to his office, but he wasn't. Walt remembered seeing that face around The Others' enclave, talking with Ms. Klugh and Tom. He often saw him walking around the camp with Ben, even deeper in conversation with him than with the rest. Walt had never talked with him, but he wasn't afraid of him either. He went up to him and squinted.

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to ask you a question," Richard Alpert said. "Would you like to go back to the island?"

Richard hadn't known what to expect, and was a little surprised and relieved when Walt's face broke open in a huge smile and he nodded. "Are you sure?" Richard asked and extended one arm back and away from them both. "Because if you're not, I'll go and we'll never bother you again."

"No," Walt cut him off. "I'm sure. Is my dad…"

"Your dad passed on but he's still on the island. Do you know what I mean Walt? Does that make sense to you?" Walt nodded, and though his eyes showed his sadness at the news he took it calmly. It was as if he sort of already knew. "Just because he's passed on doesn't mean you can't help him. And you can help your friends too. There's important work we need you to do."

"Can I call my grandmother from there, and let her know I'm okay?" Walt asked it so abruptly that Richard looked taken aback but then he smiled.

"Actually, I think you probably can."

"Then let's get going," was all Walt had to say.

Now, 76 hours later, he was back and sitting on the swing set in the yard of the barracks pushing himself slowly backward and forward with his feet. It was close to midnight, and he'd already tried and failed to go to sleep once.

He had gotten up, thrown his clothes back on and left his bedroom in the bungalow he would be sharing with Rose and Bernard. It was way too quiet in there, with Bernard recovering from surgery in The Staff station and Rose by his side. Walt knew there was no way he'd fall asleep for hours more, so why lay there?

Now he was breathing in the night air, picking up the smell of a campfire close by and feeling absolutely, perfectly at home. Part of him wanted to laugh with relief, part wanted to cry. Instead, he looked straight up and stared at the thousands of stars in the black night sky. He'd forgotten what the sky really looked like, after three years in New York City. Then he closed his eyes and decided to stop thinking about it all and just feel it instead. He focused on the feeling of being here, letting his mind drift both down into the ground below him and up toward those stars at the same time.

Although his backside stayed on the swing, he felt his senses sailing away from it, first to the trees nearby and then up and up and up until he could see the barracks below him, then the outline of the entire island. The ocean surrounding it was several shades of deep blue with brilliant silver bands rising and falling under a nearly full moon.

Then he picked them out: Kate, Hurley and Richard sitting around a campfire about a tenth of a mile away. He let his awareness drift over to them. They were passing time, waiting for Ben and Desmond. He sensed they were going to talk out the differences and conflicts he had sort of smelled going on between everyone on their walk home but for now, they were just chatting. Kate was asking Richard questions about his life on the island before they'd all arrived and Richard was answering slowly, thoughtfully. Walt knew their power struggles weren't his problem to fix, but he wondered how it would all go.

He hovered over them for a moment more and then drifted back toward the barracks. He saw Ben walking, saw him stop by the gazebo where the pretty Doctor Annie was sitting on one of the rails and writing in her journal. She stopped and looked at Ben but it was like she was looking at him and through him at the same time.

"Annie," Ben said and stopped. "It seems to be a night for coming clean, so I'll tell you this up front: I'm going to ask Hurley to check closely into your background. If what you told me is true, if you came here on your own and your motives are good then I'll be the happiest person on the island. If not, well, you should tell someone now and not later, maybe Hurley if not me. And I let my anger get the better of me earlier. I'm sorry."

Annie locked eyes with Ben for five full seconds and then went back to her journal without a word. Ben walked on to join Hurley at the campfire.

Walt could feel something deeper than disappointment radiating from Annie, and the weight of it nearly dragged him down to the ground. He let it go, slowly, and wandered in his mind to The Staff. He could feel but not see Bernard inside lying on a cot. Rose and Penny were sitting on either side of him and Desmond was just leaving to join the group at the campfire. Walt wasn't worried. He knew it would take time, but Bernard would be okay. He wasn't sure why he was sure, but he was.

Then, out of nowhere, something intruded on his wandering thoughts. Walt couldn't tell if he'd just noticed it, or it had just spotted him but whatever it was felt like a thousand magnets pulling him toward it and sounded like the low hissing the ocean made when it went all flat and calm before a storm.

Then he was there, hovering over the Weather Vane, the first hatch he'd ever actually seen on the island. He dropped slowly down, and it wasn't until his feet touched the ground that he realized it wasn't just in his mind now: He was there, without ever having taken a step between the swing set and the floor under his feet.

It wasn't the first time Walt had shown up somewhere he wasn't supposed to be, but it was the first time it had happened in a long time - since back when the Others were holding him hostage. The stress of his own kidnapping back then had sent him hurtling around the island in search of his father. He'd only found Shannon, Vincent and Sayid and couldn't maintain his telekinetic travels for any more than a minute or so at a time. Today, though, it was much easier for some reason.

Walt looked around, and saw the most amazing room full of banks of computers and monitors. There was a thrumming sound that made it feel like the whole place was alive. In the middle of the room was a platform about a foot and a half high made of metal and of silver tiles. He thought it looked like a transporter pad on the Starship Enterprise and that made him laugh out loud – until he realized that while it was clearly not that, it was probably some sort of means of transportation. He felt he wouldn't need anyone to push and levers or turn any dials to use it, though.

Walt went to the platform and stood there for a second. The thrumming sound wasn't so strong on the platform, it was like some sort of wall of energy was around it, and although it was part of the room it was separate from the room too.

He followed the same impulse he had when he was sitting on the swing. He let his mind move in every direction he could feel to let it wander, until all sound faded slowly out and then the room washed away too. Even though his eyes were wide open, he was absolutely nowhere for a second: No sounds, no smells, no air temperature, no anything.

It was just starting to reach the point of freaking him out when the nothingness stopped, and melted away just like the Weather Vane station had before it. He was standing near the water on the beach, their beach. The sun was out, shining on the tents. He knew those shelters, could even recognize the shape of Kate's tent versus Hurley's, spotted Sawyer's lean-to with its lawn chair, which sat empty right now. But the shelters were not in the same places. Some of them were further away than they "should be," others were facing in directions that were different. The camp looked a little bigger, and the small graveyard with its two graves was much further west, so far he could barely see the crosses where Boone and Scott lay. He saw a third cross, and wondered whose it was. He realized there were a lot of questions he'd have to ask Hurley.

And he could see familiar faces. They were about 200 yards away from him, close enough for him to recognize them, but not so close that they spotted him standing there. Rose was in the pantry, cutting up fruit and talking with Claire; John Locke sat on a log, twisting an old shirt around a tree branch to make a fresh torch. Neil was throwing a tennis ball for Vincent.

For a moment, Walt was afraid to breathe, afraid it'd all go away. Then he started running, headed toward Vincent, looking around for his father, and he only stopped when it hit him: These were his people, his friends, but they were not his people. This was not his past, this was some place else and just because it looked the same didn't mean it was at all.

"Walt?" He looked back and saw Charlie standing there, his jeans rolled up to his calves he walked on the edge of the water. He was carrying baby Aaron in a blanket, seemingly on his way back to camp after a few minutes of peace and quiet. Walt wondered why there was such a look of stunned confusion, almost horror on Charlie's face until he remembered: Charlie was seeing a 14-year-old where he expected a 10-year-old, and was unable to really grasp what he was seeing as Walt was right now.

"What are you doing here by yourself? Where's your dad? Have you seen Kate or Jack or Sawyer?" When Walt just stood there, mute, Charlie looked up the beach and yelled loudly for Hurley. Walt saw Hurley's head turn their way.

Walt wanted to tell Charlie it was okay, it was just him, he could explain, but suddenly it was all too much and he had no idea what to do. He wanted to run, but felt frozen.

Then, in the time than it would have taken for him to pull in a deep breath and bolt, he was back at the barracks lying on the ground under the swings. It was the dead of night again.

Walt sat up, and felt the same feeling he had just minutes before: Half of him wanting to laugh and half wanting to cry. He knew, now, at least a tiny bit about this important job that Richard had brought him back here to do, and what it might involve. He had come back hoping for a simple life on the island, but he realized that wasn't something he was likely to have- at least not for awhile.