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"I need you to help me. I need you to help me clean up this mess that I've made. I need you to kill Charlie." Ben spoke over the Walkie-Talkie, his voice steady despite the immense pressure building in his skull. They're coming for me, he thought, Charles finally found me. How did I let this happen?

Mikhail listened as Ben wrote Charlie Pace's death sentence and signed it without a second thought. As Ben created a chain of events that would lead to Shepherd making contact with the freighter, to Alex being killed, to his way of life being destroyed, to him murdering the man who protected the island.

"What about me, Jacob? What about me?" The fire in the center of the room cast strange shadows across Jacob's features, making him appear weak and frail; just an ordinary man, nothing special. In that moment Ben wondered, Is my entire life a lie? In that moment, he began to understand how John Locke must have felt standing on that desk with a cord wrapped around his neck. Broken. Faithless. Alone.

At the time, Ben had thought that John had lost his faith in the island and was beyond hope. He had believed, really believed, that he killed John for the island, for the man standing before him. A man he had never spoken to before that moment.

Jacob looked Ben in the eyes and spoke slowly, deliberately, each word containing emphasis, "What about you?" And then Ben killed him, expelling hatred with every rise of the knife. The man who was not John Locke kicked his body into the pit, and his body was consumed by flames. Ben stood silently in shock, blood from the knife dripping onto the floor. He had been manipulated as he had manipulated others.

The question haunted Ben to this very day; its significance and its meaning. Had Jacob simply been mocking him, or had Ben been too blind, too angry, to discern the message hidden within? Had Jacob been trying to tell him something?

The sound of Shepherd's rampage echoed along the seemingly endless white corridors, but they seemed muted to Ben, far away and distant. He walked with purpose, his footsteps quick and light as he scanned room after room for her. Doors lay ajar, some hanging precariously on their frames. He walked past them and eventually the noises fell away, leaving a deafening silence hanging in the air like humidity.

Ben had no doubt that the others would rescue their friends without him. What he had to do was far more important. At least, it was to him. There had to be a reason that Eloise was so desperate to find the island. She seemed to believe it could bring her son back, and what if it could? Could it bring Alex back as well?

The island made Richard immortal, healed John Locke of his paralysis, sent people reeling through time, granted Desmond the ability to see the future, and brought Sayid back from death. But, what of people who were long gone, years gone? Ben wanted answers, and there was only one person to get them from.

Having grown up in the Initiative, Ben was familiar enough with the general layout of Dharma stations that it wasn't difficult for him to find what he sought without being detected. The main purpose of the station was always at the heart of building, usually in an atrium; all paths led there. Eloise would be waiting.

The station was larger than most, having doubled as a psychiatric institution. As Ben wove through the twists and turns that led to the truth, his face set with determination, he ran the intended confrontation over in his mind. He thought of Eloise, and of how she responded to various situations; intimidation, mockery, sympathy, spite, fear, love, jealousy. He had her reactions to these catalogued in his mind, as he did with everyone else he met, waiting to be used when an opportunity presented itself.

Ben planned what he would say, which words to twist to his benefit, and in what order. He knew how she would react, and he knew how to use it. It was simple, really, once he got his cards straight. Manipulation had always been a certain specialty of Ben's, one that came in handy quite often.

At last, he came to a place where the walls no longer had windows and the doors were shut firmly, some of their hinges rusted from disuse. He walked to the end of the hall, where light shone out from a solitary room, flickering slightly. His pace quickened in time with his pulse.

"Hello Benjamin," Eloise's voice wafted through the open door, "I've been expecting you." He entered the room and she regarded him with the look of a school teacher about to deliver a bad report card. She was sitting before a set of monitors; her back turned to the rescue attempt playing out. Ben glanced at the screen and saw that Jack and Sawyer were getting closer to an exit.

"Eloise," Ben nodded curtly, "It's a pleasure to see you again." She smiled and gestured to the monitors.

"I see that you are here to thwart my attempts at rediscovering the island. There isn't much more you can do, after destroying the lamppost." Her eyes flashed.

"I didn't do that. Jack Shepherd did," Ben countered, revealing just enough information to get her interested, to get her involved, so that she would do what he wanted. He smiled internally.

"I don't care who it was that destroyed the station. All I care about is getting back to that island."

"And why is that, Eloise? So you can get you son back? The man you killed? Trying to get rid of that bad feeling in your stomach? Tell me, if this place can bridge the gap, then why hasn't he visited you and told you exactly how to find it?" He kept his tone mocking, in order to enrage her into revealing the truth while simultaneously distracting her from the fact that he wanted to know the answer, to keep her from knowing that he cared. She had to believe that he already had the answers.

"Don't you dare! Don't you dare accuse me of killing my son when you and I both know that you are just as responsible for your child's death," she spat. Ben said nothing, all he could see was Alex lying in the grass, small and still. He could even smell the smoke hanging in the air. His hands shook.

Eloise sighed, touching a hand to her forehead. "We have both made mistakes, you and I. The island is the only way we can rectify them."

"And just how do you plan to do that?" Ben scoffed, "Unless I'm mistaken, Daniel died thirty years ago. He's gone." He put on a face of contempt and pity, masking his emotions.

"There is a way. There has to be. Charlie Pace, Claire Littleton, Jack Shepherd, Desmond Hume; they all have the trace of what we used to call, "the infection". They have all died and been returned. And now, there is a new protector, and he can change the rules Benjamin, you know this."

"So that was your plan?" Ben asked incredulously, "To lure Hugo here by capturing as many as his friends as possible? How did you even know that he would be chosen?" His hopes were sinking fast; Eloise had no real plan, she had no proof that anyone could be brought back, she had nothing. She was just a desperate old woman.

"I knew one of them would," she responded, "And then Mr. Pace appeared in the Tunisian desert, thirty years since last I saw him, the same age as he was all that time ago. I found out from him that he had been resurrected by Jacob. And I knew... I knew that it was all about to begin. The selection."

"Is that why you erased the Ajira flight from all records? To protect the candidates?" Eloise didn't respond, and Ben knew that he had his answer. Eloise was no mastermind, she was grieving. Useless.

But still, she said that Hugo could change the rules. Jack was the island's security system, and yet, he was allowed to leave unlike the original smoke monster. People could now come and go from the island whenever they wanted if they knew where it was. Ben's mind raced with possibilities, but Eloise either had no answers, or was unwilling to provide them.

"Ben," she began, "You and I both came from the same people. We both served Jacob faithfully for years. Perhaps we can work together again." Her eyes pleaded with him, silently begging him to help. Ben felt a smile play across his face; he was immune.

"I murdered Jacob," he said, watching as her eyes widened, "Goodbye Eloise, it's been... interesting." He left her there without another word.

He had to find Hugo.