Chapter 10

SHEPHARD HOUSEHOLD

"Somehow I feel I should be passing popcorn out for this," Hurley said.

"You do refreshments just for previews?" James said distractedly. "I have to say Ben, it's things like this that make me doubt your motives."

"I suppose if you bite into an apple and find a worm, you'd shout: 'Son of a bitch, Ben," Ben said drolly.

"Only if you'd given him the apple," Sayid said.

Even after everything that had happened several months ago, it was understandable that the survivors didn't trust Ben's good intentions. It was hard to blame them, considering that Ben had spent their entire time on the island lying to them and that they had spent a lot of time trying to forget who he was. They were willing to trust him more but most of them were still not secure around him.

It was for that reason Ben had asked Lexi to serve as a go-between with what he'd said in Boston two weeks earlier. He might have been less comfortable if he'd known that Lexi had waited several days to tell Alex and Izzie about it and even then they'd only agreed to go along with it because they figured Dan and Charlotte would tell them eventually.

"I thought you guys trusted him more than anyone," she had asked.

"We have a certain rapport with him," Izzie said delicately.

Alex was blunter. "We knew he was harmless off the island and that his bullshit never worked on us. Once the emperor had no clothes, there was no reason to tell him how handsome his outfit was. That doesn't mean we're forgiving of all the shit he did or that everyone who came back should sing songs of friendship to him."

Lexi had silently been relieved that her impressions of Ben had been shared by her friends. "They should still know about this," she'd said.

Izzie and Alex concurred. "They spent all that time on the island unable to understand what was going on or why," Izzie said. "Any knowledge that get is the right thing, no matter who it comes from."

So Lexi had gone to Jack and Juliet with the information, figuring that the two of them would by far be the most hostile of the group. Their attitude was more resigned than anything else.

"Ben Linus withheld information. It must be a day that ends in Y," Juliet said blandly.

"He said that this didn't come from him but from Annie," Lexi reminded them.

"Ben could tell me the sun rose in the east and sat in the west and I'd be convinced the Earth was flat," Jack said simply. "I'm kind of impressed by Annie's devotion to Ben, but I am inclined to doubt her sanity."

"You're more rational than I am. I can't picture Ben at ten," Juliet countered.

Neither can I Lexi admitted. "Look I admit it. I don't know him the way you do, which may be the only reason I don't flat out think he's lying," she told them. "Besides, it's not like I have the best track record when it comes to making decisions professionally."

Surprisingly Jack waved that off. "You weren't exactly given the best teachers when you got here," he told her. "As for your thing with Sloan, it's not like anybody in this hospital, myself included, has the moral high ground to lecture you."

"From what I remember you pretty much staked a claim into that wherever you went, even before you got to the island," Juliet said with a smile.

"And I have been lectured on my self-righteousness ever since," Jack smiled back. Then he turned serious. "Ben has been back in our lives for almost a year and he hasn't done anything to try and get us to go back to the island. I'd say that would earn him some goodwill but…"

"Everything he did before?" Lexi acknowledged. "Look, all I said was that I'd tell you about what he said he'd found and I've fulfilled my promise. I know that none of you were delighted that Meredith and Ben decided to collaborate."

"To be fair, almost nobody at Seattle Grace was happy about that," Juliet said. "And they'd have reason to be worried even if this project had nothing to do with the island."

"You talking from an objective perspective or a personal one?" Lexi asked. "Because we've had our share of doubts on this even from the start."

Jack and Juliet exchanged glances. "You first," Jack said.

"I take it by this point you've heard the name Jacob," Juliet said. Lexi nodded. "What's your opinion?"

Lexi thought for a moment. "I'm not a particularly religious person. After what happened to my mother, I gave some thought to it. You'd have to, given the circumstances of her death and the desperate need to believe that she's in a better place. And despite what we think as doctors, we know better than to dismiss any patients belief in a higher power." She hesitated. "That being said, the idea that God was just hanging around on a moving island in the Pacific Ocean where the battle for the soul of mankind is somehow being fought, forgive my language but that's some next level bullshit."

"Even after your time with Locke?" Jack asked.

"We had some conversations about it," Lexi acknowledged. "I was more than forthright. I told him if I had been in your shoes when the two of you were over the hatch and he asked me if all of this were happening for a reason, the first words out of my mouth would have been: 'So my mother dying of the hiccups and my father becoming an alcoholic was part of this grand design?'

There was a moment of contemplation. "Would that have been a bridge too far?" Lexi asked.

"No, I'm actually wondering I didn't think of bringing up being on the plane because my father had drunk himself to death in Sydney," Jack said thoughtfully.

"You were dealing with a lot at the time," Juliet reminded him. "Besides, it's not like sharing stories was something any of you had done."

Jack turned the question back on Lexi. "By that point you knew why he thought what he did. That didn't change your thinking?"

"I told him that I could not function in life if I genuinely thought I had no choice in any of the decisions I'd made," Lexi said truthfully. "I'd be willing to say that all roads might lead to a certain point but the idea I'd had no input to choosing them for myself, I refuse to buy that. Iz and Alex think the same thing and so does Meredith."

"Mittelos would never have sought you out with that way of thinking," Juliet said admiringly.

"To answer your original question if I ended up on the island and I had met this Jacob, this supposed designer of the grand plan, I would have walked up to him politely, and then I would have kneed him in the balls." Lexi said sweetly. "Then I would have demanded to know who gave him the authority to meddle in the lives of complete strangers and before he could respond, I'd kick him in the ribs."

"Did you tell Locke that?" Jack asked neutrally.

"No but I understand that Alex and Iz have pretty much told him the same thing. In this case, I see no need to pile on." Lexi told them. "They've made it clear that for all intents and purposes Ben was no better than a snake oil salesman and that cult leaders had more integrity. The only reason I didn't go that far is because he wasted more than thirty years following that delusion."

"You've just given us the most convincing argument that none of us should ever listen to a word Ben ever says, if we needed proof," Juliet told them. "It does make me wonder why you're advocating for him."

"You misunderstand, I'm not doing this for him, " Lexi said. "Indeed it's because the two of you are among his biggest victims that I think you should do this."

"You just said we shouldn't trust him," Jack said puzzled.

"I also know that he spent the better part of two months withholding information from you," Lexi indicated Jack, "and more than three years doing the same," she indicated Juliet. "I think the best way to make him give reparation is for him to do everything in his power to tell you everything he knew – and everything he didn't know – about the island."

"And the fact that he spent all that time lying?" Juliet said with a raised eyebrow.

"You're familiar with the old adage 'trust but verify'?" Lexi reminded them. "This evidence would seem to be one of the easiest ways to do that."

LGLGLG

"Now how exactly did Annie find this?" Locke asked.

"She's been in touch with Olivia Goodspeed ever since everything happened," Ben said. "Because of her being there when the Initiative was founded – and because she got out when the getting was good – she still has connections with the ones who are still in civilization."

"The ones who weren't purged," Sayid said deliberately.

To his credit Ben didn't flinch. "They don't know I collaborated but the fact that I'm still alive and the rest of them aren't, they're not stupid."

"How did Olivia get this?" Locke said delicately.

"One of the ones who came back in the mid-eighties was a man named Samuel Kyker. He served as the videographer for all of the films that the Initiative made."

Hurley blinked at that. "Did they like, let him take his work home with him?"

"No Hugo there was too much secrecy involved in the filming," Ben told them. "Everything that wasn't sent to the stations was more or less put in a vault. They didn't want anyone who wasn't Dharma to find them."

"Well that worked out spectacularly," Kate said.

"There was apparently dispute about whether the films should have been made at all," Ben said. "Radzinsky hadn't wanted anyone outside what was called the 'circle of trust' to know anything about the stations. It wasn't until whatever happened with the Swan that he was exiled that the films were completed."

Locke remembered the section that Eko had shown him in the Arrow and wondered if Radzinsky had engaged in 'editorial control' afterwards.

"So if the films are all still on the island, what are we looking at now?" Jack asked.

"Kyker was on site for all the films that took place. Which meant that he was given a certain degree of responsibility among discarded footage. That included filmstrips that we're never finished." Ben paused. "And according to him, the footage we're about to see was ordered by Chang to be destroyed."

That got everyone's attention. "Why?" Locke asked.

"I think in this case, it's simpler if you see for yourself," Ben said. He pressed the button on the projector.

The film started like those that all of them – Locke more than the others – had seen before. It was the start of an Orientation film with the tinny music. The footage began with an image that some of them were familiar with – and when Locke saw it, his eyes widened.

They saw the image of the man they had seen so many times before under so many different names. Except this time someone was putting make-up on him:

"Why do I have to wear this I'm a scientist not a…"Hello. My name is Dr. Edgar Halliwax. You're watching the Orientation film for Station Six. The Orchid. "

'Halliwax' was holding a white rabbit with the number '15' on it. Hurley and Sawyer both blinked, but for different reasons.

"As you have probably realized, Station 6 is not a botanical station and we apologize for making you deceive your family and friends. The unique properties of the island have created a Casimir effect and the work we will be doing in the station will be potentially dangerous."

Then something seemed to drop from the ceiling behind them.

'Halliwax' stopped and snarled what the hell. He turned around. On the shelf behind him was the exact same rabbit with the big number 15.

Screaming was heard off set. Halliwax who in every film was the picture of calm sounded afraid when he shouted: "Don't let them near each other!" A female assistant ran onstage, saying that she'd set the switch to minus 20. "Turn the camera off!" Halliwax shouted.

The camera went black.

"That night, according to Olivia, Horace and Pierre Chang came to visit Kyker," Ben said slowly. "They demanded that he destroy the footage he had shot. Kyker agreed and the next day they shot the Orientation film for the Orchid that John said he told you about."

"Um, what the hell did he make of that?" Hurley asked.

"Kyker knew better than to ask questions at that point. But the day after he finished filming that the last Orientation strip, he got on the next sub that came to the island and he never came back." Ben said. "When someone from Ann Arbor came a few months later demanding he sign a confidentiality agreement, he didn't even think twice. He'd seen enough strange stuff the last couple of years to last him a lifetime, but this was the last straw. He knew whatever Dharma was up to it was going to end with everybody on that island dying."

Ben looked at Sayid. "He just thought they'd blow themselves up doing it. You saw the Swan; I think you know how close they came."

Sayid didn't want to agree with Ben about anything but he remembered that his initial remarks about the concrete had reminded him of Chernobyl. It was hard to debate what he'd seen. "Apparently he didn't obey the order he was given," he said instead.

"According to Olivia, he didn't want to touch it," Ben said. "He couldn't explain what he saw in that film but he was afraid the section itself might be radioactive. He just held on to it."

"Would someone mind explaining what the hell that was?" Sawyer said.

"Well based on what we know about the Orchid, it's pretty clear they were working with something close to time travel," Locke said. "The finished tape seemed to show that exact thing – and with that same rabbit."

"You recognize it?" Kate said doubtfully.

"The number 15 was on it," Locke said. "I'd like to believe it was a coincidence, Hugo but I think we know better than to expect that by now."

Hurley was grateful that Locke was acknowledging the reason without acknowledging it. Maybe the numbers had been cursed. "So somehow that bunny was sent back in time before the film began?" he said slowly.

"It ain't gonna sound any less ridiculous no matter who says it, Hoss," James told him. "But why the hell the worry about the two bunnies touching? I'm guess it wasn't because they were afraid of breeding."

"It might have been something worse," Jack said. "I don't know physics as well as Faraday but I'm familiar with the concept of antimatter. I have no idea what the Orchid does when it uses time travel but if it's using radiation, they might have done something to reverse its particles."

Juliet suddenly became very still. "And when one bunny meets its reverse counterpart."

"Boom," Jack said simply. "All of this was theoretical physics, of course, but my guess is if it happened, something far worse than any incident could take place."

For the first time the group really seemed to understand the primeval forces the Dharma Initiative had been willing to mess with when they began their experiments. They might not have deserved to be purged but it was pretty clear that they weren't innocent bystanders in the battle between them and the Others.

Sayid looked at Ben. "I think it's time you tell what you really knew about what Dharma was doing with those stations," he said neutrally.

Ben paused. "Most of what I learned came after the fact," he said carefully. "The Initiative had a very strict protocol. My official position was essentially a janitor, which meant I wasn't privy to many internal conversations. But as I'm sure you are aware of in your daily lives, most of us view the people who have the most menial of jobs as practically invisible."

Many of the group couldn't argue with that. "They felt fine talking when you were in the room because they didn't think you were smart enough to understand the conversation," Michael said.

Ben nodded. "It wasn't racial but there was a caste system involved. And everyone does need their floors mopped up."

"But the Orchid was disguised as a botanical station," Locke said. "And none of us were able to find it."

"That I didn't learn until afterwards," Ben said. "But I found that some of the easiest people to recruit were in the most menial of jobs. Mechanics and construction among them."

"You managed to get some of the people who were laying the foundation," Sayid almost sounded impressed.

"One of other things about being considered menial is that you are also considered expendable," Ben pointed out. "In the case of the Initiative, that meant that several of the people who had to dig around the electromagnetism ended up being casualties themselves. Of course they were all dying in mysterious accidents. Such as the man who had a filling in his tooth come loose and go right through his brain."

"Let me guess. He was digging near the Swan," Jack said.

Ben nodded. "Of course that's just a rumor. Alvarez got tired of Dharma and took a sub home. The fact that he had been digging out in hostile territory at the time and never came back was just idle gossip."

"How many accidents like that were there?" Jin asked.

"No one knew for sure," Ben said. "And it's not like it could be discussed. According to the terms of the truce there were certain places in the island we shouldn't be and places we definitely shouldn't have been digging. But everyone knew it was going on. It was just one of those things that no one in charge was talking about."

"Was this the idea of Radzinsky?" Kate asked.

Ben shook his head. "By the time I was a teenager he had been exiled to the Swan, so I can't say for sure. I assumed that he was part of it but the whole upper echelon knew about it. And that included Chang."

They'd been told this before but it took a moment for them to remember that they'd just seen Chang on that film strip. "Tell us about him," Hurley said. "What did he do besides lie about his name on old movies?"

Ben's expression changed. "Chang was different then many of the other higher-ups. He was married and he had an infant son. He had a PhD in physics and he clearly had a deeper understanding of what was going on than Radzinsky did. But it didn't change the fact that he was more than willing to go along with it to meet his own needs. And that included the Orchid."

"The Orchid was his baby," Jack said.

"Radzinsky's kind of science was more practical than Chang's. They got into a lot of fights over it." Ben said. "That I do remember. Radzinsky said he didn't come here to recreate Doctor Who and dig in places that had already been dug up."

"Back that up," Sawyer said.

"According to the gossip from some of the construction people, the site of the Orchid was determined when the Initiative had located a well." Ben looked at them. "Only whoever dug them was not looking for water."

"I take it you knew about those wells," Claire said.

"But not who dug them," Ben told them. "I asked Richard and he told me they'd been there well before he arrived. And if they'd been there before him…"

No one had to ask the question. "Did Richard ever know why they were there?" Jack asked.

Ben shook his head. "He never asked. What he was willing to say was that he knew enough to know that digging any deeper was something that should not be done. It had been one of the things he insisted on as a term of the Truce."

"Tell us about that," Claire asked. "Were you ever told the terms?"

This time Ben nodded. "Richard had one of the first drafts, which made sense. Apparently he was the person who helped negotiate it."

"He was, what, some kind of diplomat?" James asked.

"More like an ambassador." Ben said. "Most of the natives didn't wanted to fight until Dharma was gone. Richard only prevailed because…the normal rules of warfare didn't work on him."

Locke understood that much. "How did it work out?"

"From what I understand Horace put together the terms of it, Richard edited it and put on the back of it some very specific amendments that Dharma could not violate. I don't remember everything Horace put down on the register, but I do remember Richard's practically word for word." Ben paused.

"The Initiative could not enter any ruins on the island. Dharma could not drill more than ten meters into the ground, even in their designated territory. The maximum population of the Initiative could not exceed 216 members – don't ask me the significance of the number. And most importantly, the terms of the residency of the Initiative could not exceed fifteen years from the signing of the truce."

Locke considered this. "Well, they definitely violated the second part of that term," he said. "Just unearthing the hatch, we had to go a lot deeper than ten meters. Was the Swan in what was considered hostile territory?" Ben nodded.

"And the Pearl and certainly the Flame had bunkers that were much deeper than that, even if they were in the territory of Dharma to begin with," Sayid conceded.

"The Truce was signed in August of 1973," Ben told them. "Part of my job as intelligence was to learn if Dharma was planning to keep their end of the bargain the closer we got to end of the limit. It was clear even by as the spring of 1987 that Dharma had no intention of leaving the island."

He paused. "That being said, I wasn't entirely honest about what I told Richard and the rest of his people the closer we got to the deadline."

"Are you telling me you had qualms about what needed to be done?" Locke asked. "That's not what you said when you took me to that pit."

"No John, I was pretty sure even by then it was going to need to be done," Ben acknowledged. "I had reported the fact that they had been digging. And when I told them about the Orchid they were particularly concerned. I wasn't privy to the details but even I knew the last thing they were doing was building a greenhouse."

"Why didn't you tell any of us about it?" Juliet asked. "I knew about every major station but you never told me."

"By that point I knew the real reason it was important," Ben said. "It had nothing to do with the experiments Dharma had done but where they were digging in the first place. Even the film that tells the story of the Orchid doesn't even touch the surface of what they were trying to do when they dug in the first place."

They all remembered the pictures that Charlotte had shown them of a polar bear skeleton with a Dharma collar – that was in the middle of a desert in Tunisia.

"How did the Initiative keep the secrets on the Orchid in the first place?" Kate asked.

"Like I said, the Initiative was compartmentalized," Ben told them. "After most of the stations were built, only the people who operated them were allowed to work there in the first place. All of the ones on the main island were two-person jobs, Hydra Island was maintained by a separate staff and the Looking Glass was never operated by more than a half dozen people who never worked longer than a two week shift. The rest of the Initiative was in the Barracks. A certain number of people were assigned to work in one specific station but no one was ever given a shift into two different ones at any time."

"So if your assignment was the Flame, you never worked in the Pearl," Sayid reasoned.

"And I thought plausible deniability only happened on The X-Files," Hurley muttered.

"Then what the hell was everybody else doing?" James demanded.

Ben shrugged. "My dad wasn't the only one who was complaining about his work assignment. Half the people who they got to come to Dharma ended up in construction, the motor pool or the kitchen."

There was a pause. "I'm trying to figure out what's worse," Kate said. "Ending up on the island because of a plane crash or being brought on a submarine told you were going to change the world – only to ending up cooking the food of the people who thought they were."

"I'd argue for option c but at least I thought I knew what I was getting into and why," Juliet said.

"Try to imagine spending a decade on the island as an auto repair man and you might understand why it was easy to get people onboard for what was being planned," Ben said simply. "And those were just the ones with menial jobs. There were two men who Dharma recruited in early 1980s whose had been former Green Berets in Vietnam."

"Let me guess, they were there to help with guerilla warfare against the Hostiles," James said resignedly.

"Worse," Ben looked at Locke. "You remember the Tempest?"

"Hard to forget it," Locke said. "I'm guessing that what was used for the Purge."

"Did you wonder why it was there in the first place?" Ben asked.

The penny dropped on Sayid first. "Dharma was planning to use chemical warfare on the Hostiles."

Ben nodded grimly. "Much as you might think otherwise, mass slaughter was not something I relish. What made me realize conflict was inevitable came when I learned that the only reason Horace agreed to a fifteen year limit was because the Initiative had no intention of anyone else but them being alive at the end of it."

Sayid was beginning to feel the tiniest bit of sympathy for Ben Linus. "When was the Tempest built?"

"No one knew about it except the top," Ben told them. "It was the last station Dharma ever built, and I assume the approval had to come from the Hanso Foundation. I don't know anyone else who would have been able to get access to the kind of weapons that they were using there or the men who could have been able to manage it."

"What were they using? Sarin? Agent Orange?" Locke asked.

"Chlorine gas." Ben said grimly.

"Are we talking…" Jack started.

"Not that far removed from what was used at such wonderful vacation stops as Dachau and Belsen," Ben confirmed. "Small wonder no one wanted it to slip out that the Tempest existed. It would have been hard to argue that the Initiative was a peace-loving organization when it was planning very close to its own solution to the original settlers."

Michael was beginning to look disgusted. "Is every group who comes to a new land just colonialists at heart?"

Sayid looked at Locke. "You saw this at the Tempest?" he asked.

"Whoever set it up did not intend for a peaceful resolution," Locke affirmed. "It looked like something out of an Army base, albeit one from the 1980s. There was nothing vague about the countdown here." He looked at Ben. "When did you learn about it?"

"Both of the former soldiers had joined up with Dharma in an attempt to atone for their sins in the war. They believed the party line about the island being a peaceful utopia. They believed they were to provide security and protection. Neither knew until it was too late that their rotation was going to do something far worse than what they'd done for God and country."

Sayid knew all too well the kinds of things you could be persuaded to do for the greater good.

"Both of them were repulsed by the idea and demanded to leave. They were informed that they had signed contracts and that they had agreed to help them with a problem. They were told they could not depart," Ben paused. "until it had been solved."

With a sickening feeling Juliet realized this was the same line Ben had used over and over. Except for these men they were told that the loss of innocent life was the acceptable – even intentional – result.

"When you said you were the good guys, I didn't believe you," Michael said slowly. "I still don't, but if that was what your people were up against, I can get why you might have felt that way."

"The soldiers' job was to first aid in the construct the station and then wait until the order was given to use it," Ben said carefully. "Perhaps left to their own devices it might never have come to fruition. But they were – supervised – by members of the security team."

"How did you learn about it?" Kate asked.

"The solitude as well as the guilt about what they were standing guard over got to one of the men. Steven Deschain was his name." Ben said. "He drowned his sorrows in Dharma rum and whiskey on a regular basis. But even impaired he was skilled enough to find his way back to the Barracks and to remember the code for the fence."

This did not sound like it would have a happy ending.

"We were alerted to a code 14-J." Ben said. "Everyone was preparing for a breech. But when he showed up security knew there was a problem. Particularly because Deschain was armed with an M-16 and demanded to speak to Goodspeed."

"Everyone thought he was hostile. Mitch, one of our security men thought he could take him without a problem." Ben said. "Deschain shot the Luger he was carrying out of his hand. Didn't even scratch him. 'One minute. Next time I aim a quarter inch to the left."

"There were at least six guns on him. He didn't flinch. 'I didn't come to this island to kill people. Doesn't mean I'm still not good at it.'

"I don't know how it would have ended but Horace came out. Deschain didn't even look at him."

"I'm very aware of what the Initiative is capable of.' Deschain might have discussing the relative humidity, that's how calm he was. 'I also know you hired me because of what I was capable of."

"'We can talk about this.' Horace was using his mathematician voice."

"'I've heard you talk. I also know what that sound means. You're moving one of the men you didn't bring out her into position so you can neutralize the threat.' It was the first time I'd ever heard a man so blasé about the end of his life.'"

"I once managed to kill seven Viet Cong in less than twenty seconds with a rifle that had been soaked in the mud for a week. I've kept this weapon pristine since then as you can see. I seriously doubt you recruited a sniper for your security forces or if you have an adequate rifle for the job. So I figure it will be at least ninety seconds before someone in position. And given the nature of who you have working for you, it will take another thirty seconds at least for that poor slob to gather the strength to splatter my head on your lovely wicker furniture."

"'Now I know how quickly you can do math in your head; Goodspeed and you know how efficient I am at my job. You're trying to calculate how many of your men you will lose before I am removed from this situation. You're trying to figure out if you can run away fast enough before I turn this gun on you."

'I didn't notice him move. One moment he had his gun still on Mitch, the next Mitch was on the ground writhing in agony and Deschain had the gun on Horace.'

"'I haven't killed a man in more than fifteen years," Deschain said calmly. 'Your man is wounded, but in a couple of weeks – maybe less if what I've heard is right – he'll be alright. The same can't be said of you if you don't tell your men to stand down by the time I get to three.'"

"My family is in the house next door,' Horace said as calmly as he could." 'My wife already lost one husband on this island. You want her to lose another?"

'Deschain paused. 'Does Amy know the man she married?' he asked. 'Does she want to know the secrets he keeps from her? Because in some places I've seen combat, dishonor is worse than death."

"Are you sure this guy only saw combat in Nam?" James asked. "Guy sounds like he was some kind of samurai."

"This was the first time I'd ever heard of him," Ben said. "I'll admit I did wonder how he'd ended up in Dharma in the first place."

"What's a nice guy like you doing in a place like this," Kate said, not really joking.

"How'd it play out?" Locke asked.

"Horace clearly could see how things worked. He told his men to back off. Deschain took his weapon off Horace but at this point everyone knew he still held all the cards.'

"What do you want from me?' Horace asked."

"To deliver a message. Once I have I'll leave and we'll be done.'

Ben paused for a moment. "Deschain didn't raise his voice but by this point no one was making a sound."

"I am very good at what I do. Had I the desire, I could lay waste to this place before any of you could get a shot in. I might be doing this island a favor.' He paused. 'But that would be better – cleaner – then you deserve. And I have enough blood on my hands.'

'So here is the message. Your Initiative is full of a rot so deep that it cannot be healed. I don't know what sins the people of this island have committed against you but they can't possibly deserve what you brought me here to do. All of you have forgotten the faces of your fathers. And you don't deserve to live on this island."

"The next time the submarine comes you should all depart. Otherwise I would prepare for the end. I'd tell you to make peace with your God but after seeing what you've done here, he will likely have nothing to do with you."

"That was all he said. He walked out of the Barracks. None of us ever saw him again."

Locke knew there was more to the story then that. "Security didn't pursue him."

They tried to." Ben said. "As soon as everyone was sure he was outside the perimeter, the security team went after him in three vans. But somehow they couldn't find him. They checked the monitors but he didn't appear on them. Everyone assumed that because he'd been a spook during the war that he'd known how to get around the security. They didn't know how he got back through the fence."

"Curiouser and curiouser," Jack muttered.

"Oh, that's far from the strangest part," Ben said. "At first light, they basically began to scour the island grid by grid. They started at the Tempest – where they found the man's comrade at arms. Chambers was his name. He told Horace then Deschain had told him what he was doing and that he didn't intend to come back. When they asked him why he hadn't tried to stop him Chambers' answer wasn't comforting."

"I had offered to come with him. He thanked me but said I'd likely slow him down and there was no sense in getting killed for them."

"Infuriated Horace had demanded to know why he hadn't called them to give a warning. Chambers' shrugged. 'Because I agreed with him.' He then told them point blank that he was either quitting or they were going to have to fire him because he was done with this place. 'I'm sure there's some other sucker you can get for this job,' he told them.

"Why does it seem like the only two people the Initiative had with a moral compass left too soon?" Locke asked.

"Maybe they'd seen enough horror films and they knew that when the leaves start rustling strangely, it's time to leave," Hurley said.

"Not entirely an inappropriate analogy, Hugo," Ben admitted. "When I got a chance I asked Richard if they'd seen this man Deschain in the woods after he'd left."

"Did Richard tell you anything?" Locke asked.

"He gave me one last piece, but it didn't make the picture any clearer." Ben said. "He told me around the time Deschain had been leaving the Barracks, he'd seen a man in the woods. Understandably this was a violation of the Truce, so he ordered a couple of our people to follow him."

"They followed his trail cleanly for nearly a mile. They were on the verge of ordering him to stop." Ben paused. "That's when things got odd."

"If they're saying that, it must have been really weird," Kate said.

"Oh, it was. You know just how quiet our people are and there was no sign that he and heard them. But just as they were about to announce themselves he said quietly: 'You can come out now.'

"'Now Richard had already been on that island for a very long time but this was the first time he'd ever heard of something like this. He told me he was afraid, which I couldn't understand." Ben paused. "I think John might understand why better than the rest of you."

Jack answered instead. "If he doesn't, I do."

They all understood the implication. Richard thought it was the incarnation of the monster.

"I realize you have no reason to trust me, and indeed you have every reason to kill me," Deschain told them. "It's not like I didn't deserve it long before I came to your island. I only ask that you hear me out before you decide to do pass judgment."

"Richard decided to risk it. He told his people to stay back and he would talk to this man.

"Deschain was waiting. 'You're one of the natives,' he said matter-of-factly. He offered his hand.

Richard didn't take it, though he did realize that this was the first person in a very long time from Dharma who hadn't addressed him as a Hostile.

Deschain nodded as if he'd been expecting as much. 'Are you someone in charge?'

"No," Richard said. 'but I can speak for those who are.'

Deschain nodded at this. 'I understand why you hate them.'

"Your people?"

'They're not my people any more than they are yours,' Deschain said just as calmly. 'I understand why'd you want to kill me. But before they do, you and your friends might want to follow me over the ridge.'

'Richard was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He followed Deschain.'

'I'm aware that you've had a conflict with Dharma for many years," Deschain said as they walked. 'I don't care to know your reasons because there will be no truth to them.'

"Richard was shocked to hear this. 'What makes you so sure I'll lie?"

'Because the Initiative has lied to be about their intentions. I have no reason to take yours at face value. And frankly I could care less. '

Richard almost stopped moving.

"There's no reason you could give that could justify bloodshed. I've heard so many excuses for warfare over my lifetime that there's nothing you could tell me that would make it sound noble or even justifiable. I know the reason."

"'I don't think you do," Richard began.

"Because it's always the same reason. You were following orders. Maybe you believe in the person who gives them, maybe you agree with them, maybe you're just a loyal soldier. It doesn't matter. It's what you tell yourself so, after doing horrible things, you can look yourself in the mirror.'"

Jack couldn't help but interrupt. "How many times did you tell yourself some version of that over the next sixteen years?"

Ben didn't mind the interruption. "More often than I can possibly remember."

"And how did Richard take it?" Locke asked.

"He has no idea how to respond. He had no intention of telling this stranger that they were there to protect the island, but he had a feeling that this man would have dismissed it."

"'We're here.' Richard told me later that he could see the logo for the Tempest from where they were standing.

"Inside that bunker is what I have spent the last several years helping to construct and guard,' Deschain told Richard. "'It will take some time for Dharma to get there and they will spend time guarding it."

"What's inside?" Richard asked.

"What Dharma is planning to use when the deadline passes.'

"Richard had an idea of what Deschain was implying. 'Why are you showing me this?"

"I'll be leaving soon. Once I do, you'll have two paths. One would be to destroy this station and everything that's in it. The other choice will be to take over the station and use the weapons within it on Dharma themselves." Deschain smiled sadly. "I know the choice that I would make. And I am certain you will take the other."

"Then he started to walk away. Richard's followers were moving up. "Where do you think you're going?' they demanded.

"He didn't even slow down." "A better place than this."

'Richard told them to hold off and to check out the station." 'We'll find him later,' he said. 'He has nowhere else to go.'

"But Richard was wrong. They went through their own search later but they never found Deschain either." Ben said. "He never went back to the Barracks and he never even tried to sneak on the submarine."

"You know, anywhere else in the world 'vanishing into thin air' would be utterly unbelievable," Kate said. "The island is the only place where it sounds plausible. But based on what you're telling us, it was a new one on you."

"Everyone was focused on what was to come. But he wasn't among the dead or the living." Ben told them. "I saw many odd things over my time on the island. But that was odd even for people like Richard."

"And you never saw him again. Even as a spirit." Jack said.

Ben shook his head. "Until the plane crash he was the only person I ever saw who never thought the island was special. He certainly didn't think anything of the people on it."

"The other man, Chambers, did he ever say anything?" Locke asked.

"He was on the next sub out," Ben said. "Dharma was never able to find anybody of those two men's ability to handle the Tempest. They maintained an armed guard for the next several weeks but it was easy to overpower them. Besides we already knew how to use the station."

"I realize you have no reason to think highly of me," Ben told them. "But once we found that station we know that it was going to be us or them. "

"So you killed them with the weapons they were going to use on you," Locke said. "If the whole situation weren't so horrible, it might almost be poetic justice."

Sayid thought for a moment. "Widmore gave the order that the gas be used."

Ben nodded. "Of course, he wasn't within a mile of the station when it was activated." He paused. "To be fair, neither was I."

Locke had made it very clear what Ben had been doing when the Purge was happening. All of them had heard horror stories of what Roger Linus had been capable of. There were some survivors who'd had parents as bad or even worse than Ben's father.

Kate decided to talk. "I was horrified when I learned who Wayne was," she told him. "I know what it is to have a father who is a drunk and brutal man. But the difference, Ben, is that I was trying to help someone when I killed him. Despite everything Diane said, I wasn't being selfish."

Locke looked at James before speaking. "I'm sorry I made you kill Cooper, James," he said sincerely. "I know he ruined your life like he ruined mine but that doesn't make my actions any less horrendous."

"I'm over it now," James waved it off. "What I don't get is, given all the shit he did to you, why you couldn't do it."

"Same reason I said before," Locke told him. "I wasn't capable. Maybe I was feeling safer on the island because I thought I was away from forever."

"When my brother Omar was twelve, my father forced him outside and told him that to prove his manhood, he had to kill a living thing," Sayid said softly. "I decided to help him kill a chicken. When I did it, Omar immediately gave the credit to me. My father told me at least one of his son's would be a man." He looked at Ben. "That may have been the only time in my life he was ever proud of me."

"If you're doing this for the sole purpose of piling on, I've already been through it with Izzie and Karev," Ben said sadly. "I'm all too aware that this particular sin may not be forgivable."

"I understand you a little better now, Ben," Jack said. "None of us will deny that you haven't made a lot of progress the last couple of years. But I think you know, even if absolution of your sins was possible, we're not the people who can give it for many of them."

"I am painfully aware of that, Jack," Ben said. "I'm fully aware that I'll probably spend the rest of my live trying to penance for my sins. This was a small steps towards trying."

"I'm glad you said that" Jack said. "There's something I've been meaning to do for the last few weeks. I have to tell you upfront it's a two person job. I'm capable of talking about it with one of the people involved and I think you can handle the other one better than me."

"This is about what you mentioned last month," Ben said.

"Mind filling us in, Doc?" James asked.

Juliet had an idea. "This is about Thatcher Grey, isn't it?"

Jack nodded. "You know what they say about those who can't, teach."

"Lexi's been receptive to her father. I think you could push her to talking on her own," Ben said.

Jack shook his head. "That, sadly, would be too easy. He wants to have a conversation with Meredith."

"You'd have an easier time getting Penny and her father to reconcile," Kate said.

"Which is why we're going to need your powers of persuasion," Jack said to Ben.

Ben thought for a moment. "I'm going to need a couple of days," he said slowly. "I have to tell you based on some of the conversations I've had with her over the last couple of months, I can understand why Meredith was working so hard on our project."

"She'd rather talk to her dead mother than her living father?" Michael shook his head.

"And she still might."

AUTHOR'S NOTES

I had a feeling that given everything that happened to Lexi's parents in Season 3, she might not be entirely willing to accept either the idea of everything happening for a reason. And since its practically canon that Jacob 'interfered' with the candidates lives to get them to the island, I have a feeling many of the survivors would have gladly volunteered to kill them before Ben got the chance.

In case you're wondering the segment I'm describing was shown at Comic-Con in advance of Season 4 of Lost. (You can find it on the DVD extras for Season 3 if you look.) It's essentially a preview for the Orchid station and gives a hint as to what the finished film might be. According to the Lost Encyclopedia Kyker was the name of the videographer for the Dharma filmstrip for the Arrow, so I embellished to make him the film-maker for every movie.

I figured Ben could not have carried out the Purge alone so he spent a fair amount of time recruiting members of Dharma who, like him, had menial jobs. The idea of the janitor and other workmen being able to be a network of spies seems like a good candidate, considering that, like Roger, 'the grease monkeys and janitors might not have signed on' if they'd known this was coming.

We never knew just how much Ben knew about the Orchid or indeed most of the Others. Obviously Richard told him about it, but Charlotte clearly had some idea where it was dug in her subconscious (she mentioned the well before she died). I'm giving the idea of the conflict between Chang and Radzinsky over the Swan and the Orchid as fitting both men's nature: Radzinsky never seemed to care about the Orchid at any point in Season Five but he must have known it existed.

The Truce and the terms Richard amended to it are listed in The Lost Encyclopedia as I wrote them and in Season 5 we saw Dharma violate them when they were digging both the Orchid and the Swan. Given everything we saw about them, particularly Radzinsky's itchy trigger finger in Season 5, I can easily see a scenario where the Tempest was designed to exterminate the Hostiles. This logic makes it clear why the Others might very well have considered themselves the 'good guys' when Ben explained it to Michael.

Am I saying that 'Steven Deschain' is an incarnation of Roland, the Last Gunslinger and that Chambers is Jake? This is not just a tribute to Stephen King. I spent much of the second half of Lost comparing it to The Dark Tower series (I even thought for a while that they had gotten the last book for 'book club') but we never saw a direct link. I've wanted to pay tribute to the series since I started this fanfic, so I figured why not put it here? As for how Deschain left, well Roland always had a habit of finding doors to other worlds.

Yes, they know about how Ben killed his father. And none of the Losties will let him off the hook that easily as they shouldn't. This will lead to a kind of atonement which will play out in the next chapters.

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