"Morning!" Charlie exclaims loudly, waking me up. "Who wants breakfast? I have papayas and papayas."
"We need to go," Sayid says. He's putting the shirt he used as a pillow back into his pack. Ana Lucia is smothering the remains of our fire.
"Right, why eat?" Charlie says.
Thunder sounds above me loudly and I look up, startled. The sky is dark gray with overcast. "Let's go, we're not far," Sayid instructs.
We walk through the jungle about another half-mile and the rain starts to pour down hard. Sayid holds the drenched map in front of him, looking at the giant overgrown clearing in front of us.
"This is it," Sayid says. There's nothing here.
"This balloon would be rather large, right?" Charlie asks.
"Why am I not surprised?" Sayid says, putting the map in his pack.
"We need to look some more," Ana insists.
"This is where he said it would be," I say. "The field is empty. There's no balloon."
"If I'm going to back you two up on this, we need to be sure," she says looking between me and Sayid.
"I'll divide the area into four grids, so search as thoroughly as you please," Sayid says, observing the area.
It seems like we search all day. And the rain doesn't help. It messes with my vision. But I don't think vision is the issue. Henry said his balloon was massive and red, with a large yellow smiley face on top. There's absolutely nothing like that out here.
Ana, Sayid, and I gather in the middle of the clearing. "Maybe he's wrong. We should search the other side of the cliff," Ana suggests, pointing.
"We've been searching for three hours. This balloon does not exist," Sayid says. He turns back toward the trees. "Charlie!" he calls.
"Then why did he draw the map?" Ana counters.
"You told him you would protect him whether we found this balloon or not. You've given him two more days to talk, to figure how to escape. We're done." He turns back to the trees. Charlie!"
"Over here! This way!" we hear Charlie call. I follow his voice with Sayid and Ana behind me. Charlie is standing in front of a grave. Gray stones covering the mound of dirt with a cross sticking out as a headstone. "He said he buried her, right? His wife?" Charlie asks.
Ana rubs her hands together. "Why isn't it raining here?" she asks. She's right, the rain isn't falling on this spot. The ground is humid, but not damp. I hear a heavy sprinkling above me and we all look up. Above us is a giant red, deflated hot air balloon. In the center of the top, a large yellow smiley face is printed there.
"So he wasn't lying," I say in disbelief.
Sayid stares up at the balloon. "I still don't believe him."
"How can you not, Sayid? It's right in front of us," Charlie says.
"If he is one of them, he knows all about this Island. Tia, you said when you met them in the jungle, they knew your names. They know who we are."
"It's a façade," I say. "Kate, Claire, and I went looking for medicine the other day, for the baby—,"
"Is the baby alright?" Charlie asks.
"Charlie, shut up. The baby's fine. But Ethan took Claire to a medical station. She said he was wearing a lab coat. She met a girl there, not dressed in rags like the rest of them."
"What are you saying?" Ana asks.
"I found a fake beard and their dirty clothes on hangers, neatly hung and folded. They're not hillbillies. They're more sophisticated then we give them credit for. They have technology. They're smart. It's a façade!"
"That's a stretch, Tia," Charlie says.
"No it's not! Think about it! They want us to underestimate them. They want us to think that they're stuck here just like we are. That they're savages. But they're not!"
"So this balloon is theirs," Sayid concludes. "They put it here as a cover for Henry to hide behind."
"No, I don't think that's it. Look at the balloon. It's been here for ages. The plants growing through the basket. It's been here more than a couple of weeks."
"So, do you think this is, then," Charlie says, pointing at the grave. "If it's not his wife?"
"Let's find out," Sayid says. "We need to find some kind of shovels."
"Wait, what?" Ana says. "You're gonna dig up this grave?"
"Do you have a better idea?" Sayid asks, heading into the jungle.
"You're gonna let him do this?" Ana says to me.
"It's the only way to know if we're right, Ana."
Sayid is back shortly with wide, hollow sticks of bamboo, the kind we use to dig back at camp. Sayid drops them, keeping one for himself. We start digging.
It's a deep grave, and it takes a while, but eventually the smell of the rotting body mixes with the smell of the rain and grass. It's even worse because of the balloon above us, blocking out most of the fresh air that could carry away the smell. I hit something solid with my makeshift shovel. That must be the body. Gross.
Ana crawls out of the hole with Charlie, giving Sayid and I more space. We clear the dirt off of it, trying to fight through the smell. I see a hand. An African-American hand. Sayid uncovers his face. "Tia, this face has a beard," he coughs out. "This is not a woman, it's a man."
"So he lied. We were right," I say smugly.
Sayid sticks his hand into the pocket of the body's pants. He pulls out a wallet. "Charlie, Ana Lucia, help us out!" Sayid calls to them. Charlie pulls Sayid out and Ana helps me.
"You guys reek," Charlie informs us. "What did you find?"
"It's male," I tell him and Ana. "Henry lied. We were right."
"What you got there?" Ana asks Sayid.
"That man's wallet," he says, opening it. He pulls out a driver's license and hands it to me. A picture of an African-American man and the name Henry Gale are printed on the Minnesota license. This is not the man we have in the hatch.
"Then there's this," Sayid says, holding a twenty dollar bill. I hand the license to Ana, whose eyes widen. "Jennifer, well, you were right," Sayid says, reading off the note. "Crossing the Pacific isn't easy. I owe you a beer. I'm hiking to one of the beaches to start a signal fire. But if you're reading this I guess I didn't make it. I'm sorry. I love you, Jenny. Always have, always will. Yours, Henry."
"He said his wife's name was Jennifer," I say. "Hold on." I jump back into the hole and the real Henry's body chokes me. I move the dirt off of his face, and examine. "Sayid," I call. "His neck is broken."
Sayid reaches into the hole and helps me out. "They killed him?" Charlie asks. "Why would they do that?"
"This is their Island. They didn't want him here, so they eliminated him," Sayid says, matter-of-factly.
"We have to get back to camp," Ana says. "Tell Jack and Locke. They're gonna be pissed enough that we did this without them."
"They'll get over it," I say. "But we need to re-bury him." I nod to the real Henry. "He didn't deserve what he got."
It didn't take long to bury Henry's body and soon we were headed back to camp. The sun fell as we got closer and we're about a mile west of the hatch when I notice something in the distance. "Guys, do you see that?" A light is flashing in the distance. We change our direction and head toward it.
I hear a voice that I recognize as Kate's say, "It's food."
We break through the trees. "What the bloody hell is that?" Charlie asks.
Jack ignores his question and walks right up to Sayid. "What did you find?"
I look over at Kate. She looks confused as she doesn't know about Henry. Jack has been keeping her out of the hatch, away from Fake Henry. "We found a lie," Sayid says to Jack. "We found the real Henry Gale's body."
Jack doesn't respond. He just heads toward the hatch. "So you guys have a gun?" he asks as we follow him.
"Sayid has one and so do I. Kate gave it to me. She got it from Sawyer."
Jack opens the door to the hatch and we all pile in. Henry is sitting with Locke on the couch and Locke's leg is propped up on the table, bleeding. Locke let him out?!
"Get away from him!" Jack shouts at Henry, who jumps up in surprise.
"Wait, you don't—,"
Sayid pulls out his gun, pointing it at Henry. "Step back, right now."
"Sayid, it's okay," Locke says.
Henry hasn't moved. Jack advances on him, pushing him away from the injured Locke. "I said, get away!"
"I let him out," Locke tells us. "There was some kind of lockdown or something. He was helping me."
"Couldn't you find my balloon?" Henry asks.
"Yeah, we found it," I say, producing my gun from my pack and pointing it at his head.
"We did find your balloon, Henry Gale," Sayid explains. "Exactly how you described it. We also found the grave you described, your wife's grave. The grave you said you dug with your own bare hands. It was all there. Your whole story, your alibi. It was true. But still I did not believe it to be true. So I dug up that grave and found that there was not a woman inside. There was a man." Sayid reaches into his pocket and throws the driver's license on the ground. "A man named Henry Gale."
"Wait, what is going on here?" Kate asks. She's finally broken.
"I'll fill you in later. Get him in the armory," I say to Jack. Jack pulls Henry by his shirt and tosses him into the small room once again.
I lower my gun. "What happened to you? Why was he out?" I ask Locke.
"The blast doors," Locke says. "The ones that encase the computer room. They came down and I tried to slide under one and get to the room. I got stuck, the door went down on my leg. The button went off and Henry came out to turn it off. The doors came back up and I was freed. Henry helped me over to the couch and you know the rest."
"So what do we do now?" Ana asks.
"We interrogate him again. Get the answers. He will lie, but we may be able to figure out some things," Sayid says. "If we leave him in there too long, he'll come up with a good lie. We need to tie him up."
"Agreed," Jack says. "There's rope in the pantry."
"What about my leg?" Locke asks.
"I'll look at it," I volunteer. "Then I can fill Kate in on all this." She gives me a thankful look.
"I'm gonna head back to the beach," Charlie says. "I'll check out that parachute of food we saw."
"Sounds like we've got a plan," Ana says. "Let's get to it."