The first day in the Dharma Initiative was quite overwhelming and surreal for Alice and she kept on waiting to wake up. Only it never happened. They really returned to the island in the most bizarre way possible while traveling through time. And they said that time travels were impossible. Alice decided that such a word really didn't exist in the island's vocabulary. Right now she just wanted to finally catch up with her friend. She'd had to pretend not to know him or anyone else the whole day and

it was harder than she thought. Now, once the night set in, she could finally go find him and ask all the questions she'd been dying to ask ever since she'd seen him coming to greet them.

She had trouble with finding the right house, but fortunately for her, the Dharma people weren't too suspicious and they quickly pointed her in the right direction. It was only when Juliet answered the door that she thought they deliberately misled her.

"Alice." Juliet sent her a warm smile once she saw her. "How are you?"

"Do you really want to know?" Alice joked. "Hi, Juliet," she then said and hugged the blonde. "I was actually looking for James."

"Well, you found him," Juliet said when opening the door wider so Alice could see Sawyer sitting on her couch and reading a book.

"Hi, there, sweetheart!" he welcomed her with a smile.

"I'll leave you two to talk," Juliet suggested. Still, before she disappeared, she asked Alice, "Would you like something to drink?"

"Thanks, I'm fine."

James patted the seat on the couch right next to him and she took it. Yet, before she managed to say anything, he asked, "What's with the ring on your finger?" when pointing her wedding band. "You and doc got hitched? And don't you look at me like this! I didn't notice! It was all Juliet during the recruitment."

Alice truly didn't know what to say. She probably should tell him everything, but she had no idea where to start. Here she was, finally talking to James after so many times of just wishing she could and she didn't know what to tell him.

"It's... complicated," she finally went with.

"Talk to me then," he encouraged.

"And what about you living with Juliet? What about Kate?"

"It's complicated," he repeated after her with a sigh and she could only smile.

"I guess we really should talk. I missed you, you know?"

James smiled in response and then he sighed heavily.

"Is Juliet mad at you?" Alice wanted to know, still trying to wrap her mind around them being together.

"She got pissed at me for Kate coming back. Then again, I didn't say anything to that, I didn't put her mind at ease, so I shouldn't really blame her," he sighed.

"Shouldn't we..." Alice hesitated before she finished, "go outside for this?"

"To risk somebody from Dharma overhearing our talk? No, definitely not," Sawyer told her. "Don't worry. Juliet ain't listening. She ain't like that."

"All right, then," Alice just said with a nod.

"The thing is that I don't really know what I want," he admitted when looking down at the floor and scratching his head. "Those three years... they were amazing. I didn't even remember what Kate looked like. I loved Juliet. I do love Juliet. It's just seeing her being back..." he stopped for a moment and shook his head. "It just reminded me of all that time... I don't know." He stuck his fingers into his hair again.

"Nice mess you've gotten yourself into," Alice summarized.

"Tell me about it!" Another sigh. "But how was I supposed to know she'd be back? I had Juliet. And I really fell for her," he confessed.

"It seems to be that you already know who you want," Alice dared say.

"Yeah, but she's got to believe it, too," James said in a depressed voice. "Why did you have to go back for us?" he then asked bitterly. "We were perfectly fine on our own and now... now this life we're having here... it's just all over."

Alice reached her hand to his and covered it, squeezing gently.

"It's ironic, isn't it?" she just asked sadly. "Once you came for me when I didn't need you saving me and now... the roles are reversed."

"Yeah, but you didn't come for me, did you?" James just asked.

Alice avoided his eyes when she shook her head and let him go.

"The truth is that at first I didn't want to come at all," she confessed when looking down at her own entwined hands on her lap. "Not even for you. It was all Jack... Once Locke died... Jack felt guilty for not listening to him, for not coming back for you right away."

"Locke did help us," Sawyer protested. "Whatever he did right after he left, it helped. We stopped moving through time."

"Yeah, but you got stuck in 1977," Alice pointed out and James actually laughed.

"Touché. But at least I'm happy here. Or I was. I made a good life for myself. I have a good woman. I've done some growing up to."

"I can see that. And I am very impressed," Alice said, when bumping his shoulder with hers.

"I just keep wondering why the hell the doc dragged you back here. Weren't you two together and happy?" James asked then.

"For a while. Yes," she confirmed. "Then he said he was ready to become a father and I found out that I couldn't have kids."

"I'm sorry to hear that, but couldn't just you adopt or something?"

"It wasn't that. Jack was never ready to be a father and he was ashamed to admit that, I guess. We started drifting apart and then... he was just gone."

"I ain't gonna believe that a child that wasn't even there came between you two."

"Maybe it wasn't all there was. Maybe he felt guilty for leaving his sister behind," Alice said. "I don't know. I didn't ask."

"First of all, you were afraid to ask," James corrected, "and second of all, what sister?"

"Claire," Alice explained. "Her mother came to LA to Jack's father's funeral and she told him. Christian Shephard had an affair and a daughter in Australia."

"I'll be damned!" Sawyer cursed. "Seriously? You aren't pulling my leg or something?"

"Nope, all truth," Alice assured him. "Maybe we'll find her. Right now, Aaron's with his grandmother."

"I hate to tell you this, sweetheart, but I haven't seen Claire since that night she walked out on us and left the baby behind."

"Yeah... I never said it'd be easy," Alice said in a resigned voice.

"So you came back because Jack came back?" James made sure.

"I couldn't lose him. I think..." she hesitated for a moment. "I think I haven't fought for him hard enough. I think I've given up too soon."

"All right, if you came all this way just for Jack, then what the hell are you doing here talking to me instead of mending things with him?" Sawyer asked the perfect question.

"Well... I guess I'm procrastinating," Alice confessed, playing nervously with her fingers, "while catching up with an old friend."

"Oh, no!" James said playfully. "You're not gonna get to use me as an excuse! Get your butt over to Jack's house and work those things out! The day ended anyway and you don't have anywhere to be. We're all stuck in Dharma for now. Go! Go get him and your happy ending, sweetheart!"

Alice laughed at that and eventually she did heave herself up from Sawyer's couch. He was right, after all. And it struck her right then and there.

"You know what? You really have grown up." She smiled at him. "And surprisingly, you're right."

"Now you've just insulted me!" he pretended to be offended.

"Well, I'm going to work through things with Jack and you figure out how to lay Kate off easily."

"Will try," James grumbled. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

"And James?" Alice turned in the door.

"Yeah?"

"I'm really glad that you're ok."

He just smiled to her in response.

Alice truly didn't remember the last time her heart was hammering so widely in her chest. It didn't even happen while she picked up all different signals of danger from all around her. Well, love did that to a person, she figured. Only love and fear could stir someone so much. She really, really wanted to get Jack back, but she didn't think it'd be that easy. They couldn't just say they were sorry and jump right into what they'd had, could they? It was too complicated.

Still, she could at least made that first step.

She knocked at the door of his house all nervous and almost immediately, he opened. When their eyes met, Jack's pupils dilated as he was so surprised to see her there. He'd been thinking about her all day and how he should act around her and there she was, reaching out to him. Unless she was there for something else, he started worrying.

"Hi," she said, feeling stupid that she didn't start with something else.

"Hi," he answered, still stunned and speechless.

"May I... come in?" she finally asked.

He didn't say anything, he just stepped aside to let her in and the door closed behind him.

Once she found herself with him alone in a confined space, she didn't even care about how ridiculous he looked in that Dharma suit. She just wanted him again. She really wanted to touch him, to kiss him. She just wanted to find herself back in his arms and forget about all their problems and the outside world.

"Jack," she finally said his name, thinking of the right thing to approach this conversation, "I don't know what comes next. I don't know how we'll ever get out of this situation, how we'll even come back home. But maybe it doesn't matter," she suddenly added, nearly drunk with his presence and closeness. He was her husband, after all. She still wore the wedding ring and when she looked at his hand, she saw that he had his, too. They should work this out. They should be together. They should apologize and forgive and just be. They still loved each other as they both confessed back on the plane and that was the one reason to why they should work on things. "Maybe all that matters is that we find a way back to each other," she continued. "So, I will stop thinking, Jack and I will forgive you," she found herself saying and it felt strangely liberating. "I miss you."

"I... I miss you, too. So much," he finally said in a hoarse voice, his eyes glassy. Then he made a step towards her and only inches were separating them. It felt electric, it felt torturous. She just wanted to reach out and touch him.

"Tonight I'm taking a leap of faith," she told him when looking him deeply in the eye. "Screw tomorrow. Just... don't let me down again. I won't survive it."

"I won't, I promise," he said and then her hands were on his face and he was moving closer and soon her arms went further and around his neck and their lips touched and they were struck with the desire they felt. The chemistry between them was so strong it burnt since they hadn't been together for so long. They didn't talk anymore. They just felt as their lips were moving against each other, as their tongues touched and the kiss deepened.

Jack led her to the bedroom and there the clothes came off and they fell into his bed, kissing and not noticing anything beside each other. Alice wanted to get drunk on him. She missed his touch, his lips, his body, his heat so much that she couldn't get enough now. They were both beyond stopping and soon enough, he slid inside her smoothly, filling her in so fully that she gasped. She hadn't had him for way too long. She adjusted quickly and still wanted more and more of him. She never wanted to let him go, she just held on to him. There was everything in it: angst, longing, intensity, desperation and most importantly – love that never faded.

"I need to know why, Jack," Alice finally said when they were lying spent in bed. He was holding her in his arms and they just enjoyed being close to each other.

"Why what?" he asked when looking at her.

"Why you left," she simply said. "It couldn't just be the baby thing. I thought you knew that I never cared about having it as much as I cared about you. I would be perfectly fine with just us together. I never said I absolutely had to have a child. It was something that I wanted, yes, but could live without. What I really needed all that time was just you." There, she said it. She also felt his body tensing, but he stayed quiet as though he didn't know what to say or where to even start.

"We weren't communicating enough," she continued when moving away and shifting onto her back. "Ever since that day I told you... we walked like on eggshells around each other and that broke us, am I right?

"It wasn't only that," finally, he said something and she listened in anticipation, her heart beating too fast. "It wasn't about a kid, at least not only that," he confessed when putting his hands to his face and rubbing it. "I was a mess, Alice," he continued when shifting to a side and looking at her.

She turned and looked at him, too. "The guilt of leaving them all behind, of never being able to help them because I was the one who lied first... who convinced everyone else... it was slowly eating me up from the inside. I didn't want to burden you with it. I just wanted you to be happy. You've been through so much already."

"But that's what marriage is all about!" she said, raising her voice. Then she realized she was getting all worked up again and closed her eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. "I'm sorry... I just... You thought you were protecting me, but in fact you just hurt me more, Jack. You pushed me away. I'd much rather you told me the truth and we'd get through this together. I could have helped you."

"Yeah, but how?" he asked. "I needed to come back here. That was the only way to make it right. And I never wanted to ask you to do that."

"Well, you didn't have to," she said bitterly. "In the end, I did it anyway because I couldn't lose you. And I don't want to lose you," she rephrased. "Can you honestly promise me that we'll get through this together and survive?"

He was already opening his mouth, but then gave up.

"Yeah, I know you can't guarantee that we'll be fine," she just said.

"Alice..."

"I need some air." She got up and started looking for her clothes.

"Alice," he repeated her name and jumped out of the bed as well, getting to her and putting his hands on her arms. "Please, just..."

"What, Jack?" she asked when looking him in the eye. Her own were full of tears. "We're back in this hellhole and it's even worse because we've actually traveled back through time. How can we ever be ok after this?!" she raised her voice again. Maybe it just now got to her. Maybe she just truly realized the magnitude of the situation. James, Juliet and the rest had been stuck here for three years. What made her and Jack and Hurley and Sayid and Kate so special that they could change things?

"I'll find a way. I promise you, I will," Jack said. "You know I will. I will do anything to keep you safe and to get us back to where we belong."

She was sobbing now, feeling so helpless. Because she didn't want to live in the 70s. She liked the modernity, the technology and the medicine of her own century. She liked her job and the place she lived in. She liked books and movies that hadn't even been made yet. She liked her clients. She liked to keep all the things she had after her parents and sister. Now it was all gone and all she had left was Jack and James. And she wasn't even sure that she and Jack would be ok.

Jack didn't know what to do or say. Eventually, he just put his arms around her, pressing his body into hers, no barriers between them. Somehow it felt even more vulnerable to Alice since it wasn't foreplay, but it was helping. No matter how broken this naked man who was hugging her, was; he was hers. He always had been. And that was enough for now.

The next day passed by so fast that Alice's head was spinning. She was working in the cafeteria, bringing meals to people and then washing the dishes with Hugo whose main job was actually to cook. The day was busy as there was plenty of hungry mouth to feed. She didn't even have time to think. Actually, she was in a strange stupor. She'd been ever since she woke up, spooned by Jack. She'd just picked up her stuff and come back to her house where she took a shower, put on some fresh clothes and got to work almost being late. Then the clock just kept on spinning. And it spun and spun. Until everything stopped when Sayid escaped and Jin found little Benjamin Linus shot and left for death in the woods.

It didn't take much to put two and two together. Ben was seen on the camera footage visiting Sayid whom he thought to be a hostile, which was just another word for the other. Sayid clearly thought he could convince Ben to set him free and then shoot him with cold blood. Whatever he was thinking, it didn't work. Ben was still alive and Juliet with Sawyer were planning on keeping him that way. Alice could understand that Linus was responsible for some of their misery, but in her mind nothing justified shooting kids. Nothing. What happened only proved to her that she was right never to trust Sayid. Who in their right mind would trust an ex Iraqi torturer anyway?

Barely did they start working, they found themselves under house arrest since LaFleur didn't want them to speak to anyone and make the situation worse.

"How can someone just shoot a kid?" Alice finally spoke out loud, breaking the heavy silence. She looked at Jack, but neither did he look back nor did he answer her.

"I know he's supposed to grow up and become a tyrant, but... he's just a kid now. It seems so... cruel."

Kate was just about to say something when the front door opened, showing James.

"Doc, I need you," he turned to Jack.

"What? Why?" Jack asked.

"Ben needs surgery."

"No," Jack simply said and all the pairs of eyes in the room focused on him.

"What do you mean no?" James asked, just as surprised as both Alice and Kate seemed to be.

"Jack, if you don't go with me, that boy's going to die!"

"Then he dies."

It was just one short sentence, but it froze Alice to the bones and proved to her once again that this,wasn't the same Jack she'd fallen in love with. The man he used to be, disappeared somehow, replaced by someone coldhearted and different.

"What happened, happened, right?" he then asked with a shrug and left the room.

"You can't be serious!" Alice found herself screaming and followed him to the kitchen before she managed to think about all the times she'd done that already and with no results.

"Alice..." he just said her name, his voice trailing off like he didn't know what else to add. In fact, he spoke to her as to a petulant child and she would have none of it!

"No, Jack! This isn't right!"

"Thirty years from now you're going to ask me to save Benjamin Linus and I will do it because there will be no other choice," he told her.

"Jack..."

"I don't blame you," he interrupted her again. "I just think that maybe the island wants to fix things by itself. So I won't move a finger to help him."

"So you're saying you shouldn't have done it then, too?" she asked in a bitter, full of resentment voice. She really wished she could understand him, but she couldn't. What made Jack so different from Sayid at the moment?

"Where did it leave us, Alice?" he asked. "Look at us now."

She could cry over her broken for about the thousandth time heart, but instead she chose anger, sick of suffering.

"Screw that!" she yelled. She knew that everyone in the other room could probably hear her, but she didn't give a damn. Not anymore. "Screw you, Jack! You swore! When you became a doctor, you swore to protect and to help!"

"Well, that didn't involve me getting thrown back in time, did it?"

"Who are you right now?!" She truly couldn't believe her own eyes and ears. What had happened to him? When had it happened? Was it partially her fault because she hadn't been there? But how could she if he was the one who pushed her away? "You know," she said in a quiet voice, shaking her head. "When I fell for you, I felt like I won the lottery because you were such a great guy, Jack. How stupid was I, hah? Since then... all you've been doing is keep breaking my heart." Damn it! She didn't want to cry and there it was again, those fucking tears! "I told you that all I needed was you. I told you I didn't need to have a child. What else do you want from me?! Why do you keep doing this?! You're just being cruel right now! Who in their right mind wouldn't help a child?!" After that, she turned around and walked away. Once she left the kitchen she heard something breaking. Jack must've thrown something at the wall.

In the end, Kate, Juliet and James helped Ben by taking him to the others. Still, in the same time both Juliet and Sawyer were risking their covers and their whole lives in the Dharma Initiative. Alice never felt more guilty than in that moment. Those two had been truly happy without her, Jack, Hurley and Sayid coming back. Everything seemed broken now. Everything seemed to be holding on thin threads.

Then Faraday came back from the land and immediately gathered them all in James's house once he heard about their arrival.

"We need to leave," LaFleur said and Alice could see that it wasn't easy for him. How could she blame him? He was finally happy here and she with the rest took it all away. He'd taken that from her once, too, she reminded herself again, not able to help but think what would've happened if he'd arrived a day later back then or not at all. She and Jack would have come back home earlier and found a way to send someone back to the island to rescue the rest. Maybe then Widmore's freighter would have never come? Or it would, still...

"We need to leave because we've been made," James continued. "I keep the guy in my closet and I don't know for how long I can do that until someone realizes he's missing."

"It's all right, James, I can help," Faraday offered. "We all need to leave this village anyway. We need to find the hostiles."

"Hostiles?" Jack asked. "Why?"

"Because they can help us."

"Won't they just shoot us first for violating the pact?" Juliet asked. "They barely left James and Kate alive after they took Ben to them."

"They won't hurt us because one of them is my mother," Faraday informed and there was stunned silence. "I know that she can get us back to where we belong."

"No, no one's going anywhere!" James suddenly protested as though he changed his mind. "We just can't risk it."

"We can't stay here either, James," Kate disagreed.

"The code to the fence is 4823," Juliet turned to Kate in that moment. "You know where the hostiles are. You can take Daniel there."

"Thank you."

"Juliet, what are you doing?" James just asked his girlfriend.

"I'm doing what's right."

Eventually, Jack and Kate volunteered to go with Faraday and then Alice made the decision to go with them as well. She didn't have anything better to do in Dharma. Besides, something in her guts told her to run till she still had the chance and that feeling never misled her. She knew she had to get the hell out of there. A life of bringing and washing dishes wasn't for her anyway. She just wasn't sure how she felt about Jack those days. She still kind of hated him for what he did to Ben, but there was a part of her that made her think that maybe he was supposed to say no. This way Ben had winded up in the others' camp and maybe that was exactly the thing that turned him into one of them.

"Kate, it's not a good idea," James actually tried to stop his ex girlfriend and Alice wished she could discretely let him know that this wasn't a good idea. Juliet saw and heard it all and it didn't make her happy, poor girl.

"What? Are you going to tell me to stay behind, too?" Alice eventually asked him when she came over to say goodbye.

"Nah, I'll just tell you to be careful. I understand your need to go." He glanced at Jack who was just getting ready to leave. "Maybe you can still salvage your marriage," he said when he looked back at his friend.

"James..." Alice sighed. "I don't know. Right now... let's just say I don't really like Jack."

"You're not the only one." Sawyer murmured in agreement before he gave her a hug.

Outside they hoped to grab the much needed guns without being noticed, but they failed. Alice was the one to save their lives as she could actually sense what would happen and told them all to get down just in time. Then she took the wheel by shooting at the enemy herself, trying to be in synch with her ability. Accepting this gift instead of trying to repress it, actually made it more bearable and she didn't feel so sick anymore. She didn't have the time to think about it, though, because they

jumped into the car and drove the hell out of the village.

Once they found themselves in a safe distance, they decided to stop for some rest. They had to ditch the car when they entered the jungle anyway and Faraday used that moment to try to explain his plan.

"In about an hour, The Dharma people will drill into a massive pocket of magnetic energy," he informed. "There'll be an incident comparable to Chernobyl and they'll seal it by building a hatch over it and putting the button there. Then Desmond will come to the island and will be pushing that button for three years. One day he'll forget and your plane will crash here and because of that, I will come on the freighter."

"It's nothing we don't know already," Jack simply said whereas Alice just sat there quietly, already suspecting that she wouldn't like where this one was going.

"I studied relative physics at Oxford," Faraday continued, "and there's one absolute rule that you cannot change what already happened. That you cannot travel back in time. Then it hit me. I spent too much time looking at the constants that I missed the variables and you know what the variables are? It's us, actually breaking the rules and traveling in time, making choices, living. This isn't the past anymore, it's our present and therefore, I think we can change something."

"What that could be?" Jack got interested and Alice felt sick. She truly felt like she was losing him more and more with every passing moment. Or maybe she already did.

"Years ago on this island I came across a hydrogen bomb. If I can get to it and destroy the pocket of magnetic energy, your plane will never crash. Flight 815 will land in Los Angeles just like it was supposed to."

"What?!" Both Alice and Kate asked at once, but beside them, there was no objections.

When Alice looked at Jack, she felt something breaking inside of her once and for all. She saw it clearly on his face. He was going to trust Faraday. He was going to do exactly what the physicist just said and therefore he was going to either kill them all or erase everything he and Alice had ever shared.