The Island

Hurley was half way back to the Flame when he heard a familiar click-snick sound of rifles being cocked. He stopped, turned slowly and saw three of his recruits walking toward him.

"Hi, Rayburn," he nodded to the one he recognized best, "And," he paused, "Carlisle and, no wait, don't tell me," he pointed to the third. "Harper."

Hurley froze then, finger still in mid-air pointing.

"Is there a reason you're pointing your guns this way?" He asked, ten thoughts flying through his head. "You do know you work for me?" And then nine of the thoughts left. They weren't necessary anymore. "Ah, crap, you don't work for me."

Rayburn shook his head. Hurley took some consolation from the fact they looked sorry to have to bust him, there was some hope in that.

"I'll have to ask you to give me your two-way and cell phone, and come with us to the Arrow," Rayburn said, took the radio from Hurley as Harper took the phone. They went a little further, made the sharp right on the path toward the Arrow.

"Why there?" Hurley asked as they walked.

"That's where we'll be holding your people until they get here," Carlisle started to say more, was cut off.

"Sorry," Rayburn said, "You know as much as you need to know."

Hurley silently disagreed with him, working on Plan B.

"Any chance you guys might defect?" He asked, the usual happy lilt and the best of intentions in his voice. He saw Carlisle looking at Harper, looking at Rayburn.

"If you flip now, you never have to be on the losing side for even a second. Plus, it'll be a lot safer for you," Hurley stopped, looked back at them. "I'm guessing someone told you not to kill me or I'd just be dead. But my people, well, a few of them have this fierce, protective streak. I don't know what they might do. Actually, that's not true," he said and started walking again "I do know what they'll do. It probably won't go well for you."

The trio behind him didn't start walking for several more seconds.

"Keep moving," Rayburn finally pointed his gun toward the path, and the other two recruits got the message. They all pushed forward to catch up with Hurley.

"You know what's funny?" Hurley asked, sensing he'd lost this battle for now. "Use my phone and google your last names and the words 'red shirt'." He shook his head. "Seriously, think about it guys. There's still time to be on the side that's going to win."

Island 4 of 5

Via the Weather Vane

Kate made it ten steps out of the Weather Vane, then heard Rose's voice.

"I thought you agreed not to go to the beach alone?" Rose called from the doorway. Kate turned around and gave a 'yeah, I'm sorry' eye roll, adjusted her backpack and the rifle on her shoulder.

"It's safer this way," she said. "I'll be back in a couple of hours, before most of the rest of them are even awake for the day and then we'll all stay put. I promise."

"Safer for us," Rose wasn't quite convinced. "But you have no idea who you might run into out there. What do we do if you never come back?"

"Not going to happen," Kate smiled, started out again.

She went off the main path after a few dozen yards, and took a route to the beach camp that she knew was shorter but covered in trees and vines. Every so often she stopped, and found even the birds and the bugs were quiet: She was wrapped in a warm, sunny, windless, utterly dead silence. She shivered, pressed on, looking forward to the sound of waves she knew would be coming, just to break the quiet.

Then she was there, the ocean visible out in the distance. Between her and the water sat heartbreakingly familiar things she realized she'd probably never see again. First, there were the tents - Hurley's next to the Kwons', in front of Jack's, many others of them in the familiar semi-circle. Behind that stretched the long table with makeshift shelves, cans and boxes and bowls and plates filling them. Closer to the water she could see the tarp for catching rainwater, and the leftover circles of charred wood where their campfires had burned. It was all perfectly intact, but there was no mistaking this was a ghost town she was walking through. She let her fingers run along the tarps as she went, and fought off a weird feeling of nostalgia for a place she'd technically never lived.

She stopped when she got to the front, turned around to face it all. And she forced her eyes to look to the right – toward the graveyard. Three crosses. The nostalgia was replaced by a thin, creeping fear. Who had they buried next to Boone?

She started to walk that way and found the closer she got, the harder it was to breathe. She closed her eyes and could hear her heart thumping in her own ears, followed by the memory of Hurley saying, "The Kate I know doesn't live in fear of finding out what happens next." She braced herself, opened her eyes, took another step forward and then….

"Hello, Kate,"

The soft, low voice out of nowhere shocked her so deeply that she almost tripped, gave off something between a gasp and a shriek. In half of a second she caught herself, flipped the rifle off of her shoulder, spun around toward where it had come from and pointed the gun.

"John?"

He was standing twenty feet away, a rifle over his own shoulder pointing straight up. He hadn't made a move for it at all, and the hard line of his mouth broke into a smile as she dropped hers, pointing it at the sand.

"John Locke?" she said then, and though the smile stayed he tilted his head, eyes squinting ever so slightly.

"Of course it's me," he said. "Who else would it be?"

Kate dropped her rifle, put her head in one hand and allowed herself a moment of hysterical laughter, her fingers trembling. She looked up and saw John was motioning toward the 'kitchen'.

"Want something to eat?" he asked, "I'm starving."

"Sure," Kate picked up the gun, remembered she hadn't eaten anything since dinner last night. She pulled a bottle of water out of her pack and went to meet him, sitting on a log. He handed her a box of dry cereal and a guava, brought over a bowl and started peeling some papaya, slicing it as he went.

"Jack told me about you," he said, "before they left. I know where you're from and what you lost, and why you felt the need to help us."

He stopped there and she was wondering if that was the end of that thought.

"That's why you're not a hostage right now," Locke said, and the thin little thread of fear she'd felt earlier shot back up her spine.

"What?" She managed a grin, picking at the cereal "Hostage? Because…" and it hit her. "These Others don't know how to use their Weather Vane hatch, do they?"

"Bingo," John said, rinsed his knife with some of the water in his bottle, slugged some of the water back himself and then wiped the knife on his pants and tucked it in his pocket.

"Those of us who decided to stay, we're not 'with' the Others, we're not with anyone. I hope we will be someday. For now, they're letting us live here in peace as long as we don't go on any crazy construction projects like their last tenants. They respect that we want to learn about this place. I think they might let us join their religious order eventually."

He held out the bowl of papaya and she took a piece.

"So you really could get a lot of leverage with them just by handing me over," she said, chewed on the fruit. "They could force my friends to help them figure it out, or maybe never see me again. Why wouldn't you take advantage of that opportunity?"

"Because I owe you my life," Locke said emphatically, holding his hand out for the cereal box. "Jack told me how I could have ended up dead in a seedy hotel room, as a pawn to get you all back. It would have been safer, easier for you not to get involved here. You made a big difference in a lot of lives."

"Well if you didn't come here to kidnap me, what did you come here, for John?" She asked, not unappreciative, just doing the math. "It wasn't to have a picnic with me."

He laughed his familiar short, sharp laugh and nodded, like 'good one'.

"No, Kate, it wasn't for the fine dining or to see another you – as unique an opportunity as this is. I came to tell you what I know about what happened to them, about their escape attempt. I figure sharing that and not taking you hostage, well it almost makes us even. I'll still owe you."

"Attempt?" Her smile was gone.

"You live in a world where Richard and Ben are your colleagues," John said, "I live in one where they were dead set on not letting them get away, maybe telling other people about the island," he stopped, set the bowl down between their feet. "They caught up with the Searcher when it was a day out. More than 25 people left here on it. I'm told fifteen made it to lifeboats after it sunk. At least one of the lifeboats sunk after that…"

Kate's eyes were darting from him to the jungle to the table in front of them and back. If she had the strength in her to focus for a second she'd have seen the sad smile on his face, John's pain at having to tell her all this.

"They could be lying to you," Kate said, her mind going to the first natural, human refuge. "Maybe they just told you that…"

"It was Richard," John said quietly, reached an arm around her shoulder. "These people have their glaring faults, but our Richard is an honest man. I'm guessing yours is too. If your Richard told you what had happened, would you believe him?"

Kate looked up at him, didn't say another word but he could read her face.

"He couldn't tell me a lot about who was on the lifeboats. It was nighttime when they attacked and there was a lot of chaos. He described people I'm pretty sure are James and Libby, Bernard, Rose, Hurley, the Kwons, your counterpart…" John stopped, held up a hand seeing her impatience. "There were also two men in the water, pulling people to the lifeboats. He was sure they were Jack and Desmond. And that's it." John said. "That's what I know. What happened to them from there, who got away and who didn't…."

Kate had been looking down at the ground again, but now she looked up with fresh horror in her eyes.

"How did Richard know all this?"

It was a simple question, but John wasn't answering.

"Locke, how the hell did Richard know all of this detail?"

"Because Ben sent him to run the mission," John said. "Richard sunk the Searcher."

Kate was on her feet, pacing, so far beyond furious it needed a new location name. For a second Locke was concerned for her until he saw her forcing herself to shake it off, to control her emotions.

"Don't blame this on your Richard," John said, "You know it's not his fault."

Kate nodded, gasping still, her arms folded. She turned to look at the graveyard.

"Who never made it off?" she asked and John saw where she was looking.

"Eko and Ana Lucia. Ana was on the first trip to the Looking Glass. One of the Others on the station shot her seconds after they surfaced. They tried to get her back here in time but she died on the way home. Eko, we found him in the jungle beaten to a pulp."

John looked at Kate and he knew she didn't have to ask by what. And as much as he wanted to know a whole lot more himself, he didn't put it on her to tell him.

Kate picked up her pack, settled it on her shoulders. John gathered his own things.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I know this is hard, but if they don't make it home there may be no one else for you to hear it from," John said. "And let's face it: There's not much that's worse than not knowing."

He saw her nod.

"Hurley's dad said the same thing to me just last night." She stepped over to him, and much to his shock, wrapped her arms around his neck in a big, hard hug.

"Thank you," she said, stepped back. "And I'm so sorry I said you were obsessed with the island because you'd never known love."

"You didn't say that to me," Locke said. "You said it to your John. But… damn."

"There was a lot I didn't understand three years ago," Kate said. "I guess I wish I could apologize to him. This is as close as I'll get."

"Maybe not," Locke gestured in the general direction of everything around them. "Look where we are."

He watched as she started north to the hatch, and then he headed east.

"Good luck to you, Locke," she said. "I hope you have a good life here."

"Good luck to you Kate," John said, "I hope you find what you're looking for."