Ann Arbor

Annie rolled out of bed at 7:00 a.m. and found the rest of the house up and hard at work. She walked into the living room in her sweats, yawning a little, surveying the scene. Miles was on the PC and looked up just long enough to give her a nod, looked back down. Evan and Joop were on the couch. Evan had Annie's cell phone hooked up to a laptop and was clicking away. He didn't see her until Joop got up, took her hand and led her back to the couch.

She curled up next to Joop, and he leaned into her, keying in on her sadness. She hadn't slept much since her mom had called her last night and screamed at her for several minutes for kidnapping him. In the end, though, it worked: Her mom agreed to get her and Sawyer a meeting with the Dharma leadership whatever was left of it. She would lie for them, tell them her daughter wanted back in to the fold and needed their financial backing to get back to the island. In exchange, Annie would claim to be giving them the one thing they were so desperately, even violently, searching for: The output of Eloise's computer program at the Lamp Post—the way there.

Everything that would happen next to their friends might ride on how much she and Sawyer could learn and get back to Hurley. Annie got a chill and literally shook for a split second thinking about it.

"Where's Sawyer?" she asked, seeing the remains of breakfast on the coffee table- cereal boxes, bowls, some spinach leaves and traces of honey on Joop's plate.

"He's already out the door, meeting someone Eloise pointed him to. They're giving him a makeover," Miles got up from the hutch, walked over, stood a few feet away from her with arms folded. "What you didn't think about when you were hatching this plan last night is that even if the current DI leaders don't know him from the seventies, some of their minions actually saw him when they attacked Claire and tried to kidnap him. If that is who attacked them, and I think we have to assume. He can't just go in there undisguised."

"Oh God," Annie said, raising a hand to her head. "I never thought of that."

"He did, and he's going with you anyway. He shouldn't be, but he is," Miles said, and Annie stopped feeling her own qualms about the mission long enough to see that he was close to fuming angry. "Listen," he went on, starting to pace. "I haven't known you very long but when we met you seemed like one of the more confident, self-directed people I've ever seen. Then we get here and all at once your mommy issues are showing. You're getting more and more mopey and unsure by the minute. You're about to drag the closest thing I have to a best friend into a very dangerous situation,"

He walked over to her, leaned down, was in her face enough to get a small gasp of disapproval out of the unfailingly polite Evan.

"This was all your idea, and it just might work. I'd appreciate it if you'd keep that in mind and…..just freaking focus, okay?"

With that he picked up the used cereal bowls and took them to the kitchen.

"Ass," Evan muttered, unplugging Annie's phone from the laptop.

"No, he's right," she said, her voice a little mystified, like she was asking herself how she'd come to this. "I'm letting her do it to me again – whenever I come home, it happens. It's amazing. I turn into teenaged me."

"Your mom is D.I., my mother's an Other," Evan said, handing her the iPhone. "Not very warm, lovey types on either side. It's because of all they've been through, I think."

"What did you do to my phone?" She looked and saw a new icon on the screen next to the weather and camera icons.

"I installed a web-based application that uses GPS to key in on your location, an app. We can track you with it. Doesn't mean we can save you, necessarily, if things go bad but at least we'll have some idea where you are. And if you leave the app open we can hear conversations you're having even if you're not on the phone."

"That's amazing," Annie looked up at him. "I've never heard of an app."

"You will, in about a year, a little more maybe. People will be buying 'em like crazy and you'll have had one long before them. Aren't you cool?"

"If they haven't released the technology yet, how do you have it?"

Evan shrugged, the tiniest hint of a smile on his lips.

"We have a friend in Cupertino."

Annie started to say something but they heard a key in the front door just as Miles was walking back in from the kitchen, and they all turned to watch Sawyer walk in.

This time it was Annie who gasped. Miles just stood there, his tongue pushing at this cheek, biting his lip to keep from laughing.

"Well?" Sawyer asked, standing there, arms out, "Anyone gonna say anything?"

"I'd walk right by and never know it was you," Evan said. "You look a total…. geek."

"Perfect," Sawyer took off the black canvas trench coat he was wearing, tossed it on a chair along with the beaten up computer bag full of buttons and stickers he'd been carrying. "'Cause that's what we were going for."

His hair wasn't so much cut shorter as it was thinned, darkened, stringy, flat. He had glasses with black chunky frames, contacts that turned his grey eyes into dark brown and that alone somehow changed half his face. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt with a white shirt open over it. Everything, the clothes, the gear bag, even his low top Converse sneakers were the right degree of scuffed and aged, as if he'd had them for months or years and not hours. He was cleaner shaved than Miles had ever seen him, and they'd even give him a couple of shaving cuts to add to the overall picture of disregard for anything fashionable or put together.

"The hair," Miles finally spoke. "It's an homage to Daniel, isn't it?"

Sawyer grinned, and for a second they could see him again in his smile.

"Yeah, I did kind of give 'em some pointers there. Pretty good, huh?"

"I've got to get ready," Annie said, leaving the room suddenly, heading upstairs fast. It was the only thing she'd said since he walked in. Sawyer gave Miles a 'what was that' look and then another one that suggested something was dawning on him.

"She did have a crush on our Benjamin when she was a kid, didn't she? Maybe I look a little more like her type now. Think she'll be able to restrain herself?"

"You are wound up this morning," Miles said dismissively, headed for the computer "I'm thinking she'll manage. Come on, we need to hop on Skype, get in touch with Hurley before you go. There's a lot going on. The new recruits are hitting the island, and there's a ship that Desmond and Penny dodged on their way to Hawaii. It's doing little circles in the ocean- about a day and a half out from the island."

The last bit of amusement on Sawyer's face was gone and he pulled up a chair.

"Think they're hanging there, waiting for directions?"

"Yes. Not that I know anything more than Hurley knows, which isn't much. But we're all pretty sure they've been there since someone tried to kidnap you a few days ago. They thought they'd get the directions out of us then, so they're going to be pretty interested in a Plan B, and that's where you two come in."

"Dial him up," Sawyer said. "Sounds like we need to get moving."

Hydra Island

Frank brought the Dornier 228 jet in for a landing on the same strip he'd flown Ajira 316 off of just a little more than a dozen weeks before. It felt odd to be there again, but a whole lot easier to manage with a 15-seater than with a jumbo jet, he thought.

He and Richard helped the new recruits off the plane, and he saw Bernard and David Reyes walking their way through the jungle and into the clearing, waving to them.

"Welcome back," Bernard addressed Richard. "Only problem with going with a bigger plane is no pontoons. We're going to have to ferry these guys to the main island with the outriggers. It'll take awhile."

"Actually," Richard waved for everyone to start walking east on a path that would take them all by the Hydra station complex and then to the shore. "We'll leave seven of the fourteen new team members here. This station needs a lot of work, too, to make it useful again. They can start today, then get some rest and work on it some more tomorrow morning. You can come get them then."

"Perfect," Bernard said, started to head out, but Richard hung back a second to talk with Frank.

"You should stay here, get some rest, too before you fly back to Guam," Richard suggested, but Frank shook his head, threw a wave and walked back to the plane.

"I'm good right now, I feel great. I'll sleep when I get there, and I'll get in touch before I start back this way with the next fifteen. We'll have you a full crew of security and engineers here in two days, maybe three."

"Thank you," Richard and Bernard left for the station, David taking up the back end of the line to keep everyone on track.

"How do you know he'll come back?" Bernard asked. "How do you know he won't just get the hell out of here and go back to flying tourists around for a living?"

Richard looked at him, shook his head, a small smile on his face.

"He won't. I saved him from a world of misery when security caught him after our plane landed. He'll help us as long as we need him. Where else is he going to go right now that doesn't involve a formal investigation into what happened to all those people?"

They walked in silence for a while after that.

"Richard," Bernard said eventually, "You've been through a lot of these conflicts here. You personally helped wipe out the Dharma team on the island, didn't you?"

"Yes," Richard said, coolly. "What's your point?"

"I'm worried about Hurley. This is an a lot for him to handle so soon."

"Hurley's doing fine," Richard said. "I'm not sure what you're concerned about."

"I'm guessing things could get nasty. I'm just thinking, hoping, since you and Ben have had to make those ugly decisions before…. Maybe you can shield him from them for awhile longer."

"We'll get him through it," Richard said, "But Bernard, Hurley could be at this job for a very long time. Just keep in mind, some of these decisions you call ugly aren't so much when they protect this place and our people- like your wife, Walt, our new recruits who are taking their chances with us…."

"I know," Bernard said as they turned off on onto the path that'd lead to the Hydra station. "It's just that it's only been four months."

"We'll have his back," Richard shrugged. "I really feel confident we'll win. I just hope we're all around to celebrate the win."

"Amen to that," Bernard said, "I'm with you there," and they walked in quiet again.

They dropped off half the recruits, paddled the other half the two miles to the main island. Richard saw the familiar green folds of the widest of the island mountainsides coming into view, and it made the rowing easier as he felt a flood of relief to be home.

Well before sunset they were at the barracks, and Hurley was waiting for them. He shook the hands of each of the new recruits, showed them to Rose who showed them to their bungalows. Then Hurley pulled Richard aside, took him to the picnic table by the gazebo. Richard saw Kate and Walt sitting there.

"Richard, Walt has something to say to you," Hurley said, motioning for Richard to sit next to his protégé. "Walt?"

"I'm sorry we started using the Weather Vane without you."

Richard's face fell, and Hurley could tell it wasn't even about disappointment as much as it was shock that Walt could do so at all. Then his head snapped around and he looked at Kate.

"We?" Richard asked.

"Yes," Kate said. "We. And unlike Walt, I'm not sorry."

"Now, now," Hurley pointed at her. "Play nice. Richard, Kate may be a little blunt sometimes but she has some good ideas about how we could use the Weather Vane to protect ourselves and maybe lock up the D.I. for good if they make it all the way here." He gestured to the spiral notebook on the table. "The three of you need to talk, write out a plan. Review it with me in the morning and then be ready to get to it, okay? Team 'Time and Space', we're counting on you."

He walked away and Richard looked from Kate back to Walt.

"Is that our name?" He said and Walt looked at him blankly. "Team Time and Space? Because I really think we can do better."

Walt laughed out loud at that, and even Kate grinned, opened the notebook and picked up the pen.

"Let's put that on the list, Richard," she said. "But it could be a long one. Here's what I'm thinking….."