When Jack finally woke up, he was lying on something very hard and uncomfortable. The air in the room was stuffy and hot, his head was pounding painfully and the inside of his mouth was all dry. Still, he opened his eyes and forced himself to get up. Once he could see in the dimly lit room, he noticed it was some kind of an aquarium with rusty walls; one made of glass. He felt like an animal in a cage as he probably was one to the others. It didn't take much to figure out that he was in another Dharma bunker as they seemed to be scattered all around the island. The real question was - where was Alice?

He looked around, locating a camera on the wall and despite his dry lips, he screamed, "Where am I?! Where's Alice?! Let us go! Do you hear me?! I want answers!"

He kept on screaming and screaming and he was just about to give up because he started to feel dizzy, probably from the tranquilizer and the lack of food and water; when he finally heard a door opening and a pretty blonde came in, standing on the other side of the glass wall.

"Hi, Jack," she said. "I'm Juliet."

"Where is she?!" Jack ignored all the information he was given and got straight to the point. "Where is she?!" he repeated angrily, pounding against the glass wall.

"Jack, just calm down."

"Don't tell me to calm down! Where the fuck is Alice?!"

"She's safe!" the woman raised her voice as well.

"Where?" Jack repeated his question venomously. "Where am I?!"

"You're in Hydra. One of Dharma stations," Juliet answered to his surprise.

Alice woke up in a bathroom. For a moment there, she was confused. There was a shower cabin, a towel, a bar of soap and fresh clothes lying right next to her. And a card. There was a card saying to get clean up and change. She wouldn't do anything the others told her to do unless she really was in a need of shower. Her head ached so badly that she thought she might throw up or pass out. She was also hit with sudden nausea and once again, she started wondering whether it was the tranquilizer and the stress or maybe… something else. She really wanted to know where Jack was and whether he was all right or… no, she wouldn't even go there. He had to be alive. If the others took them, they took them for a reason and they promised Michael not to hurt them, didn't they? Still, Alice knew better than to actually believe whatever they said. She really wanted to find Jack and a way out, but the pain in her head was so unbearable and she felt so hot that she reluctantly took her dirty clothes off and stepped into the shower, turning on the cold water. After she got cleaned up, she actually felt much better even though her head was still pounding a little. Her stomach grumbled painfully and her mouth felt dry despite the shower. She tried to drink the water there, but it was actually disgusting with traces of sulfur and chlorine.

Once she was dry and dressed up in a new pair of pants, t-shirt and snickers that didn't belong to her; she searched for a door. She hated to actually accept the clothes the others had given her, but she couldn't bring herself to put her dirty ones back on.

She finally located the door and opened it, immediately finding herself face to face with the fake-beard man from the dock.

"Good, you're awake and dressed. Come, he wants to see you," he told her and she just started at him incredulously, trying to figure out what was going on.

"Where's Jack?!" she asked sharply. "Is he ok? I'm not going anywhere until I know where he is!" she threatened.

"Oh, dear, of course you will go with me, because if you don't… you will not be the one who will pay for this insubordination. Jack will."

Alice felt as though her blood had frozen in her veins.

"Hah! That worked, didn't it?" the man asked with satisfaction. "Jack is safe and he will be as long as the both of you will cooperate."

"What do you want with us?" Alice asked, resolving herself to following the man.

"Stop asking questions. It's not my place to tell you anything anyway."

"Whose is it, then?"

"His," the man said while knocking on the door at the end of the corridor and walking in after hearing a permission.

Alice followed and noticed it was a small study with a desk and a few shelves and behind that desk was sitting…

"You!" she raised her voice. It was 'Henry Gale' or whatever his name truly was. "Where am I?!" she yelled once her escort left. "Where's Jack?! What did you do to him?!"

"Calm down, Alice. Everything in its own time," Henry told her in a calm voice and gestured to a chair on the other side of the desk. "Sit down. Have something to eat. You must be starving."

There was a tray full of food and a pot of water there. Alice couldn't possibly resist as her stomach grumbled again and she craved something to eat and drink. Once again she started to wonder why she was so ravished out of a sudden.

"I want to see him. I want to see Jack," she demanded again when she sat down and reluctantly reached for a sandwich.

"You are very beautiful," Henry suddenly said. "I know now what Jack sees in you."

"Excuse me?" She stopped eating and looked at him.

"Just stating the truth and paying you a compliment."

Just like that, Alice lost her appetite completely and started to be scared again. What did he mean by that compliment, exactly?

"Why? What is it that you want with me?" she finally dared ask, but she still wasn't sure if she really wanted to know the answer to that question. Fear was evident in her eyes.

"My God, Alice! Do you really think of us that low?" Henry asked in shock, or maybe he was just a very good actor. Yeah, he most definitely was if he'd managed to fool them for so long back in the hatch. "I am not going to hurt you in any way and despite the fact that you are very beautiful, there's another woman here who belongs to me. Does this make you feel better and safer?"

"Well, maybe you're not savages, but most definitely old-fashioned. We have the twenty-first century, you know. No woman will ever belong completely to you."

To her astonishment, he actually smiled.

"You are a piece of work, aren't you?"

"So, your name isn't really Henry, is it?" she asked, ignoring his previous remark. "That would be too much of a coincidence."

"No," he smiled again. "It's not Henry. In fact, it's Benjamin. Benjamin Linus. It's nice to meet you."

"Can't say I share the feeling," she said coldly. "Henry actually suited you more. Now, will you finally tell me where the fuck is Jack?" She was really tired with this bizarre conversation, tired of games the others seemed to be ever-playing. She just wanted to get Jack back and return to their camp. She wasn't even as greedy as to wish to come back to Los Angeles. She just wanted to be safe with the man she loved.

"All I can tell you for now, Alice, is that as long as you behave, he will be fine."

Yeah, she was completely screwed.

Especially when after she ate the rest of her sandwich, she was escorted outside and thrown into something that looked like an animal cage.

Juliet came and went and left some food that Jack refused to touch. He was stubborn and maybe right now he took that to the extreme as he knew he was dangerously close to hallucinating or passing out from the lack of food and water, but despite it all, he kept on screaming. He wanted to see Alice. He wouldn't do anything, he wouldn't eat or drink until he saw that she was all right. Juliet's word wasn't enough for him.

Only eventually, the blonde managed to convince him to eat. He knew he should, too. He was a doctor, after all. Then again, doctors always had this awful feature to care about their patients more than about their own health. Still, Jack knew he had to gain some strength if he even wanted to think of trying to escape from this place. So he ate. And he drunk.

"If you behave, if you do what we ask of you and that includes eating as well, Jack; then maybe you will be allowed to see her," Juliet informed him.

Maybe? He didn't want their fucking maybe. He needed their word if it was even worth anything!

"I want to see her NOW!" he started screaming again, but Juliet just left.

Once the blonde couldn't do anything more, Ben came to see Jack, introducing himself and trying to carry out a calm conversation with him. This time Jack actually talked to him since he wanted to know why he was being kept in there and why they'd taken him and Alice when letting Sawyer go free. Still, he didn't receive any answers. All he heard was, "If you cooperate, Jack, you will go home."

"Cooperate?" the doctor repeated with a frown. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

Of course, it wasn't as though he was answered. Ben just left him there with a fucking TV on. Like Jack needed that crap. It only made it harder for him to think. And he kept on pondering over Linus's words. Whatever the others wanted from him, Jack was scared that they had both him and Alice, because they actually had the best bargaining chip there was and because they knew that Jack would do just about anything to keep her safe. He just now begun to see how flawless their plan truly was.

"Kate! Kate! Wake up!" She felt somebody shaking her awake and then she finally opened her eyes. For a moment her vision was blurry, but then she finally saw clearly. She had a terrible headache and her mouth was parched. "Are you all right?" she heard Sawyer's question and there he gave her water. She gulped it all down before she managed to answer. "They must've hit you with more of the tranquilizer than us," he guessed.

"What?" She didn't understand a thing, but then it all just came back to her at once. "Sawyer! The others! Where are Jack and Alice?!" Kate asked and got to her feet just to stagger dangerously a second later. Luckily for her, Sawyer caught her in time.

"Easy there," he said, steadying her. "They took them and let me go," he explained.

"What?" She frowned at that.

"They wanted Jack and Alice all along. I don't know why. Michael got Walt back and a boat and he's probably on his merry way to Copacabana right now."

"Why did they let you go? Why didn't they take me?" Kate wanted to know.

"How am I supposed to know how those idiots think?" Sawyer asked sharply. "We need to go back and save them."

"Wait," Kate said and stopped him by grabbing his arm. "Where do you think you're going?"

"What do you mean? I ain't going back without Alice," he said stubbornly. "And she ain't wanna go nowhere without the doc, so I need to get him, too!"

"Sawyer, just think about it for a moment. You want to go in there alone and face all of the others? We don't know how many of them are and we don't even have a single gun on us left!" Kate tried to speak to his reason. "Everything Michael told us was a lie, so we'd be going blind! I agree that we need to help them, but not like this. Let's just go back to the camp, tell the rest what happened and then we'll figure out a plan."

"Oh, damn it!" Sawyer cursed when he realized that Kate was right and that going after the others with no back up, no plan and no guns was a suicide. He groaned and finally let the brunette pull him back in the direction of the camp.

Jack didn't know how long he was in the cage before someone came to see him again. It felt like ages, especially when he had nothing better to do than to imagine all the dreadful scenarios of his future. Not knowing what the others wanted from him was killing him and the fact that Alice instead of being safe in the camp, was somewhere close to him, yet unattainable, was downright terrifying and driving him crazy.

And then, just like that, Juliet walked inside in scrubs covered in blood.

Jack immediately raised from his position on the hard ground and came as close as the glass wall allowed him to.

"Whose blood is this?" he asked, already worried sick.

"It belongs to a woman who's dying," Juliet just answered and it was as though a bucket of cold water was poured over his head. He froze completely, terrified that it was Alice's.

"What?" he hissed, feeling all his worst fears coming true. He hadn't been there on time to save her twin sister and now he wasn't there to save Alice as well.

"Don't worry, it's not her blood," Juliet said and he felt like he was capable of just strangling the blonde with his bare hands even though he was a doctor and his job was to actually save lives, not take them.

"Then what do you want from me?!" he asked sharply, his emotions in shreds. He truly didn't know how long of being in confinement and worrying like this he could take before he cracked.

"I need your help."

They put a sack over his head before they took him outside, leading to wherever the woman was bleeding out. If he could save a life, if he did that, then maybe they would let him see Alice, he thought. Maybe that was what he was there to do… but no, that couldn't be it. Whatever happened was an accident and the others couldn't have possibly predicted that. Once he was outside, a terrible alarm sounded and he couldn't hear anything but the ringing in his ears. It was probably to disorientate him so he wouldn't know where he was.

Alice had been in a strange stupor for two days now, just sitting locked in that cage and being let out only to use the bathroom. She stopped asking about Jack, knowing she wouldn't get an answer anyway and then she heard this horrible alarm and finally, she saw him. He had a sack put over his head and was led by a blonde woman in bloody scrubs. Alice started screaming, doing her best to be loud enough for him to actually hear her, but to no avail. Next thing she knew, he was just gone and she was left alone. The alarm stopped. But at least she knew he was all right. At least she knew they weren't lying to her. That they really did have him and he didn't seem to be harmed in any way. Only why did they keep them separated? What did they want from them? Those questions she couldn't get answers to, were pure torture.

Jack, even though exhausted, paid attention to everything around him. He wasn't stupid. He suspected now what the others wanted him to do and he even thought that those X-Rays he saw were put there deliberately so he would notice. Or the others just hadn't had the time to hide them. Either way, he knew now what was expected from him. Still, he pushed that thought aside at the moment as he focused on saving the girl who was bleeding out on the table.

Despite his best efforts, she died and for a moment there, where he looked at her face, he saw Alice's face. Or maybe Anne's. It didn't really matter. It was enough to rattle him and he moved backwards until his back hit a wall. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see Alice's dead face on that table anymore. It wasn't her, he kept telling himself and eventually, when he finally opened his eyes, he saw that it really wasn't.

"Are you all right?" Juliet asked him when walking over to him. The sheet was just being pulled over the dead girl's face.

"Whose those X-Rays belong to?" Jack just asked the blonde, taking her off track.

"What?"

"Male of approximately forty years old, he has a large tumor on his spine and I'm just happen to be a spinal surgeon," Jack informed coldly. "Tell me the truth, Juliet. Tell me whom I'm going to save."

"You know, we really thought we got you," Ben started when he visited the doctor the next day. "We were nice to you. I even sent Juliet to take care of you and her striking resemblance to your ex-wife wasn't an accident."

Jack nearly couldn't believe he heard that right. Did Ben really think that just because Juliet was a sweet blonde, Jack would immediately trust her? Or maybe he'd already had a little? Talking to her was certainly a better alternative than just sitting alone in the dark, thinking about the fact that he still hadn't seen Alice.

"We wanted you to like us. We wanted you to see the world from our perspective. We wanted you to see the community here."

"Funny that you did," Jack said, "since you killed much more of our people than the other way around."

"Are you so sure about that, Jack?" Ben asked when raising an eyebrow. "Let's just say we're even."

"And now what? You want me to save your life?" It didn't take much for Jack to put two and two together and to figure out that the X-Rays he'd seen earlier belonged to Ben. Maybe an average doctor wouldn't see it, but Jack was an experienced spinal surgeon and he could tell that Ben's neck ached and was quite stiff.

"No, Jack," Ben said to his astonishment. "I wanted you to want to save my life and now… well, that's out of the question."

"Do you really think I would?" Jack repeated, not sure whether he thought Ben was crazy or just a very good manipulator. Maybe a little bit of both.

"Oh, right. We have her. You see, I needed to take her to have a bargaining chip. I needed to take her just in case."

"Why play games, Ben?" Jack asked when coming closer even though they were still separated by the glass wall. "You could've just threatened her right away and we wouldn't have to have this conversation now."

"As I said, I really wanted you to want to help me. I thought you could see we aren't that much different than you and your people."

"You never helped us when the plane crashed," Jack started counting out. "You did send two of your people, but they weren't there to help. They were there to spy on us. You took us away and you really expect me to just start trusting you now?"

"Maybe one day," Ben just said and left the room before Jack managed to say something to that. Instead, the doctor just shook his head.

The next person who came to see Jack was Juliet and it was no surprise, really. She offered to play him a movie and Jack kept on wondering what kind of games they were really playing with him. He didn't want to see any fucking movie! The only thing – or rather person – he wanted to see was Alice. That was all.

And then he actually noticed that the movie wasn't To Kill the Mockingbird, but it was Juliet herself standing in front of the camera with posters in her hands. She was talking to him now, but the posters said to ignore her so Jack idly read what she really wanted to tell him. And apparently, she wanted him to 'accidentally' kill Ben on the operating table.

"Think about what I said," she told him when she turned the movie off and walked towards the door. "Please."

"Juliet," Jack called after her and when she turned, he just said, "I need to think of Alice first." It was all he could tell her not to betray what she just showed him. She might've been right. In fact, she probably was and Ben was the devil incarnated, but Jack really had no choice. He would not lose Alice over this, therefore he would have to perform the surgery. And something told him that he'd better succeed.

Jack was in shock when once the door opened the next time, two people walked inside and Juliet was guiding a woman with a sack put over her head. When the sack was taken off, Jack's heart grew and almost burst out of his chest when he saw Alice. Alice who seemed quite all right, although extremely sad. He immediately walked straight towards her only to be painfully reminded that there was still a wall between them.

Alice, on the other hand, was a little confused. When they'd put a sack over her head again and then let her out of the cage and taken somewhere, she was terrified, thinking that maybe they would finally get rid of her. That she would die alone. Next, she felt herself walking into something that resembled a hatch. She felt the obvious change in the air - it became stuffier, more confined. Then it only got worse and she knew why when she opened her eyes. She was in some kind of an aquarium. Another cage, something told her, but then she stilled, seeing the one person she nearly lost the hope to see. No matter how long she'd screamed for the others to let her see him, they hadn't listened. And now she was finally there with Jack.

"Jack!" she screamed his name, nearly stumbling as she took up running only to came to a sudden and quite awkward stop when he raised his hand and screamed to watch out.

"There's a glass wall here!" he warned her.

Of course, she thought, her excitement dropping. Why would the others let them touch each other? It would be too much.

Still, for now it was enough for Alice to just see Jack even though she couldn't touch him. All she could do was to place her hand in the exact spot he did his on the other side of the glass.

"I'll give you two some privacy," they heard Juliet leaving.

For a moment they could only stare at each other.

"Are you all right?" Jack finally asked. "Did they hurt you?"

Alice just shook her head, tears welling up in her eyes. She couldn't seem to speak. And God, how much did she want his arms to just envelop her right now and never let go.

"Where are they keeping you?" Jack asked another question.

"In the cage outside. It's not that bad. I'm mostly bored and that's the worst."

"Yeah," he admitted with a small smile. "Me, too. They told me why they're keeping us here. It's because they need me, Alice," he explained, "and because we're together."

She frowned. "I don't understand."

"Ben… it's the real name of…"

"I know," Alice nodded. "He told me."

"Did he also tell you that he's sick?" Jack prompted. "He has a tumor on his spine and he wants me to operate."

"What? No, you can't do that! That man is…" Alice started, but Jack interrupted her.

"No, Alice, that's the thing, I have to. If I don't, we're both dead. He promised me that we'll be safe, provided that I save him first."

"So you have no choice," she realized.

"I'm sorry, but I really don't. I just want to be able to hold you again."

She smiled through her tears. "Yeah," she admitted. "Do your best, but if you can't... save him… I'll understand."

"Don't even say that. This surgery has to work. I hate that we have to play his game. Even now he's manipulating me by sending you here…" Jack's voice trailed off and they just looked at each other some more.

"I wish I could touch you right now," he whispered, tracing the outline of her cheek with his hand on the glass.

"You will," she assured him. "After it's all over, you will." Then she thought a little and added, "I guess we finally know what's eye-fucking," Alice joked and they both burst out laughing. And good because they really needed it. "I love you," she felt the need to say that once they calmed down.

"I love you, too. More than anything," he assured her.

She smiled to him through her tears and the door opened again, showing Juliet.

"I'm sorry. She has to leave now," she said in an apologetic tone as though she was truly sorry that she had to take Alice away from Jack. And who knew, maybe she was.

Once Alice was gone, Ben walked inside.

"If you help me, the both of you can get back home. And by home I mean LA, not your beach. I have nothing bigger to offer, Jack."

"If you're lying to me, you better pray," Jack threatened.

"I am not lying. I may be a lot of things, Jack, but I am a man of my word."

"We start first thing in the morning," Jack informed.

"Really?"

"Really. Have Juliet prep everything. She'll know what."

"Thank you, Jack." Ben sent him a smile. "A man in love will truly do anything for his chosen one, won't he?" he asked before he left.

Jack kept his word and he started the surgery at 6 AM sharp.

After long, arduous hours and one accidentally nicked artery, he was finally able to close and suture Ben up. The man didn't die during the operation and now Jack could only pray that everything would go on smoothly although everyone assisting the surgery with Tom included – the fake-beard finally introduced himself – saw that the doctor did everything in his power.

"All right," Jack said when he took off his scrubs. "I held up my part of the bargain. Now it's your turn."

"Come with me," Juliet simply said and prepared another sack to pull over Jack's head.