The Barracks

Nineteen days after the war

Saturday Morning

"Hello?" Kate called out, walking to the back of the bungalow. She found Eloise dragging a rake along the edge of the building with bags of flower seeds at the ready. She had a floppy hat, khakis and a button-down blouse, sleeves rolled up. "Eloise, what are you doing? It's ninety degrees out."

"I know," she stopped, "But it's a sweet, smog-free ninety degrees, isn't it? Living in a city all those years, working in that hatch: However long I stay here, I want flowers. Hurley had all of this delivered to me with the last food drop."

Kate thought that Evan might be running the Lamp Post longer than anticipated.

"Do you need me to babysit, dear?"

Eloise set the rake against the wall, walked over to peer down at where David was sleeping against Kate in his baby bjorn, not a blanket but an actual, factory-made baby carrier Hurley had also ordered up as a present.

"No, thanks," Kate smiled down at him then looked Eloise in the eyes. "I need you to write that letter now. It's time."

"Well of course, but right this moment?" she asked, and saw the slightest of a determined nod from Kate. "Ah yes, pull off the Elastoplast quickly. No long goodbyes," Eloise patted her on the arm, started walking toward the house.

It was cool in the bungalow and Kate fed David a bottle in peace while Eloise wrote. She looked up at her every so often and felt for the hundredth time this month what a horrible thing she'd done telling Eloise that Daniel was alive when he wasn't. Oddly, though, the only one who didn't actually seem to hold it against her even a little was Eloise.

"I didn't think you had it in you to fool me," she had said when they had their big talk, "And you had the right to want to hurt me; we used you all horribly to save the island. Really, in the end we both did what we did simply because we had no choice."

Now she was folding three sheets of paper, her handwriting on all six sides, single-spaced. She tucked them into an envelope and sealed it, signed her name over the flap and handed it to Kate.

"That ought to do it," she said.

The letter was necessary because they'd all realized that in order to go to Jack's L.A Kate would have to go through the Weather Vane to a Lamp Post station on that side, one run by an Eloise who worked for a Ben who sunk the Searcher and tried to kill all her friends. That epiphany almost convinced Hurley to shut down the Weather Vane entirely until Kate came up with a solution he could live with. 'She recognized her own handwriting before,' she'd said, 'she will again, I know she will.'

"What did you write?" Kate asked as Eloise sat next to her on the sofa.

"I told her you are no threat to them. And I told her a bit about what you and I have each been through. And," she said, "I told her one of the three of us, at least, should get her damned chance at a happy ending."

"Thank you," Kate said, "so much."

"You're welcome," Eloise stood again, walking her to the door. "Oh, and I put in the wording about her letting you come back through twice a year to visit."

"Do you think she'll even consider it?"

"Oh, yes, quite sure," Eloise said. "I gave her some intel she can use to her advantage against… 'er, with her Charles, her Benjamin and her Richard," she said. "It should all prove valuable enough to win you travel rights."

"Oh, my!" Kate was grinning, shaking her head as Eloise winked and shut the door.

L.A. Four of Five Via the Weather Vane

Hertz Rental Pickup

Saturday Afternoon

"Almost there, baby," Kate adjusted the straps, made sure David was as well-positioned in the back seat car carrier as his tiny self could be.

He'd barely spent more than a few minutes of his life anywhere but in someone's arms or in the bjorn, and now he was pitching his first real fit. Kate thought she really didn't need any more tears today. Leaving hadn't been as easy as ripping off a band-aid, not at all. Her own excitement grew every hour once she'd made up her mind it was time to go, but Hurley's distress grew in equal proportion. She even set out for the Weather Vane faster than she'd planned, half afraid he'd take a sledgehammer to it and keep her there.

"I can't believe we might not see you or the baby for months," he'd said, "if we're lucky."

"Well how about the last time we left?" Kate asked. "When we were ready to just take off, abandon you, never see you again? I don't know what we were thinking."

"Um," Hurley shrugged, kept walking toward the hatch. "You were thinking the island was about to sink and you didn't want to die. I really can't hold that against you."

"You know what I mean," she set a hand on his shoulder as they started down the steps. "I'll never leave you forever again, Hurley, not on purpose anyway."

"I know," he said. "I know you won't."

She had convinced herself she might not even need Eloise's letter, maybe she'd make her way out of the Lamp Post without running into her counterpart at all, but fate and timing weren't giving her any breaks there. She arrived sitting, hunched down to protect the baby, opened her eyes to see the pendulum coming straight at them and she rolled to one side of it with a little shriek.

This Lamp Post's Eloise was sitting at the computer bank looking not even the least bit perplexed to see her, and when Kate got up and started to run for the door she just barked a loud 'Stop!' Kate did, turned slowly to see her pointing a gun at them.

"Please," she stayed where she was, hands up, and slowly reached with her fingertips for the letter in the front of the baby carrier. "Please read this. Five minutes, and then if you're not convinced you can call Richard and Ben."

Eloise walked just close enough to her to see the signature on the back of the envelope.

"Open it, please, and give me the letter," she held out a hand, took it from Kate and flipped it open, holding it so she could both read and watch her at the same time. When she got to the bottom of the first page and realized she'd have to turn the page entirely over in order to go on, she laughed again.

"I would make it as difficult as possible for me to read this," she said, "If only to give you a chance to bolt. Or pounce. Please sit," she waved the gun to the computer bank, the very furthest point from the door and Kate walked that way, had a seat, her hand shielding David's head.

Eloise only dropped the gun long enough to turn pages, reading all six sides slowly, carefully. Kate could feel herself getting jumpier as she finished, knowing she was seconds from finding out if she'd go free or end up the prisoner of a very different Ben than the man she'd had lunch with yesterday.

Eloise didn't exactly crumple the paper when she was done, it was more like a distracted, one-handed folding and Kate's heart fell. Eloise looked around the room, at the computer banks, back to see her pulling her baby closer to her and she started slowly shaking her head.

"One trip a year, no more," she said. "I don't want to see you here otherwise, ever. And if you or your friends give us any trouble, directly or indirectly, I will find you and take care of the matter myself."

"Did they make it home?" Kate could barely get the question out. "What do you know?"

"I know a bit," she said, "But not what you want to know. I know you lost friends the night they escaped, and I know they took down some of my friends in the process. Don't mistake me, Kate," she stepped back, pointed to the door. "Your Eloise may be your friend. I'm not."

She was out of there in hurry, not caring that it took over half an hour to walk to the nearest car rental agency – she'd barely stopped shaking when she got there.

They survived it, though, and now she was parked near Jack's apartment, walking toward it, catching sight of Margo Shephard headed for a Mercedes that sat in his parking space. She was frowning slightly, concentrating on trying to open the passenger side door without dropping the box in her arms.

"Margo?" Kate called it out before it hit her what she was doing. She thought fast, walking over the rest of the way over, getting the door for her. "I'm Kate, I worked with your son," she said, "until a couple of years ago. I recognize you from a picture…"

She pointed up to the building and Margo set down the box, smiling slightly, reaching out to shake hands, taking off her sunglasses.

"I'd called to say I'd be in town. I was hoping he and I could catch up."

She watched Margo's face fall just a few millimeters.

"I'm sorry," she said, "I wish that were possible…."

She started to go on, but then something in Kate's now-frozen face made her stop. She looked at her closely for a second, and reached over to shut the car door.

"Come upstairs, please," Margo said. "Let's not talk about this in a parking lot."

Kate's remaining hopes evaporated the second they stepped inside. It was too neat and too dusty at the same time, silent in a way that only abandoned places are silent.

She set David on the couch, tossed aside the carrier, as if keeping busy and having something to do with her hands would save her from having to hear what was next. When she got him arranged and looked up, she saw Margo sitting on the chair next to her, perched forward a little, focused not on Kate but on picking her words.

"My son was on a plane that disappeared in September. I'm here digging through his place because we are starting the process of having him declared dead. And if I sound cold about it, or clinical," she paused, her voice catching slightly, "If you wonder how I can sit here watching you cry and not cry too, it's because I lost my husband and my only child in the course of days. I've found when I let myself start, it's not only hard to stop it's hard to even get out of bed in the…."

Kate was looking down, wiping her eyes when Margo stopped flat, and it took her a second to look up. When she finally did she saw it was her who was frozen now, staring at David, standing up to peer down at him, one hand covering her mouth.

"Oh no," Kate said, sat back, shocked out of her own misery at the look on her face, realizing only then that if she saw David's face on some other baby years from know she'd probably know it immediately, too. "I can explain…"

"Why wouldn't he have told us? I don't understand," Margo sat back down. "Why am I finding out this way?"

"I'm sorry," Kate said, "sorry to put you through this, it's so complicated, but, I never worked at the hospital. I just said that because I didn't know what to say to you. I met Jack after our plane crashed."

Margo stared at her blankly for what felt like many seconds and then to Kate's surprise she began laughing hysterically, pealing ripples of mirth that brought a different kind of tears to her eyes.

"Oh my God," she said, "You're out of your mind. He realized he was involved with a girl who was one short putt from insane and he left you. That's it, isn't it?"

She started walking toward the door and Kate got the sense the conversation was over.

"No," she said, "I swear that's not true, but I don't blame you for thinking it, either. It's probably the only logical place to go when you hear that."

Something about the calm in her voice, the lack of any sort of stung, insulted note in it got Margo's attention.

"Can you think of anything at all you can tell me," she said, "anything he told you that no one else would know? And God I hope you can, because if you're lying, if you're making this up, that would be so cruel."

"I know!" Kate threw an arm up, like 'that's it!' "The night before he left for Australia, he was at your house and he told you he wouldn't go look for his dad. He refused outright, and you made him go anyway. He said your exact words were 'You don't get to say no after what you did to him.' Do you remember that?"

Kate didn't have to ask a second time, she could see she did. Margo walked slowly back to the chair, sat staring at David for a second.

"That wasn't even four months ago," she said.

"For you…" Kate said. "For me, it was over three years ago. I wasn't kidding when I said it's complicated. I don't know where to start."

"Start at the beginning," Margo said. "That's usually best. But not now," she picked up the baby carrier, handed it to her. "You should come stay with me for a while. I have a feeling there are things you need time to figure out too, am I right?"

Kate nodded.

"Are you sure you want to invite me before you hear the whole story?"

"I don't see that I have a choice," something close to a smile crossed Margo's face. "It appears this could take some time. And the thought of wandering around my house alone all weekend, wondering how the grandson I didn't know I had is doing and what his mother is all about… well that would be crazy."