"It's your turn."
Daniel snaps out of his trance. "Right, sorry."
He picks up one of the tiny red discs and drops it into place in the Connect Four grid, blocking off a diagonal line Hurley tried to sneak past him. Plastic clatters against plastic, the only sound in the nearly-empty game room aside from a few orderlies chatting in the hallway and a dark-haired woman muttering softly to herself at another table. It's hypnotic, almost, an oddly relaxing soundscape akin to the "ocean sounds" CD he used to own.
Or, still owns? It's likely still gathering dust in the bedroom of his childhood home, stacked neatly between the few other albums he would occasionally listen to, most of them gifts from Caroline. He wishes he could remember any of the artists' names, or any of the songs, for that matter; they're all jumbled together in his head, a medley of contextless musical phrases that occasionally rise to the surface of his subconscious in a blur of half-remembered melodies and half-finished thoughts.
"Your turn," Hurley repeats.
Daniel flinches again. "Sorry."
Another piece clatters into place. "You alright, man? You seem kinda distracted."
Daniel nods automatically. "Yeah, yeah, I'm just… I've got a lot on my mind," he rambles, a laughable understatement.
Since requesting access to Widmore's intel, Dan has learned more new information about the island in the past month than he had in the previous two years combined.
In 1954, the year that was printed on the photographs he'd taken from his mother's office in the church, the island had been the site of a thermonuclear test – ostensibly, anyway. The files Abaddon provided, marked "U.S. ARMY – OP 264" consisted in part of more photographs, including several of the bomb itself; there were detailed diagrams of every piece, along with yield estimates, detonation procedures, personnel lists, everything but the date of the test itself or any kind of report on the aftermath.
It must have been called off; that's the only thing that makes sense. The projected yield of nearly ten megatons would be more than enough to quite literally wipe the island off the map, leaving nothing but a radioactive crater in its place. The files don't mention any kind of delay or cancellation, though, nothing to suggest that the test was scrubbed and the bomb recovered for reconfiguring or disassembly.
So, what happened to it? Surely the U.S. military didn't just misplace an entire hydrogen bomb. He'd requested more information, of course, but that was well over two weeks ago and he's heard nothing from Abaddon since.
The bomb must still be there, somewhere on the island. That's the conclusion he keeps coming back to, the one piece that could make everything else clatter into place, if he lets it – the FISSION CHAIN REACTION scrawled across the top of Theresa's diagram, the DHARMA orientation photo from 1977 with Jack, Kate, and Hurley.
Hurley, who picks at the edge of the black piece in his hand, his eyes distant.
"I think it's…your turn?" Daniel realizes aloud; Hurley's turn to flinch and nod sheepishly and drop the piece into the board, seemingly at random. "A lot on your mind, too?"
Hurley shrugs. "I guess."
"Everything okay?"
"I guess," he repeats, then he frowns. "Actually, can I ask you something?"
Dan nods. "Of course."
Hurley rubs the back of his neck, glancing around the room and lowering his voice. "It's about the island."
A spike of fear flares up in Daniel's chest, and he swallows hard to push it back down. Hurley can't read his mind; if he's been thinking about the island too, it's nothing more than pure coincidence. Probably. "Go ahead," he prompts when Hurley doesn't say anything else.
"I was thinking about…what you said before," Hurley says. "About how the island fixed you."
Daniel nods stiffly, waiting for him to continue.
"Well, I was wondering...did it fix anything else for you?" he asks hesitantly. "Like, did it help with...with seeing things that aren't there?"
Daniel frowns. "You mean…hallucinations? I didn't have hallucinations. I wasn't that crazy," he says without thinking, and then he grimaces. What an awful thing to say inside a mental health facility.
Hurley nods anyway, returning his attention to the Connect Four board.
"Why…do you ask?" Daniel shifts awkwardly in his seat. "Have you been…seeing things?"
"Forget I said anything, dude."
"Hurley." He leans closer, because he has to know. "Why are you asking about the island?"
Hurley looks up, then down to the table, then back up, and lets out a deep breath. "Locke came to visit me the other day."
Daniel frowns again, confused. "Locke?"
Realization dawns in Hurley's eyes. "Oh yeah, that's right, I guess you never met him. He's like this crazy, bald, outdoorsy guy." He lowers his voice again. "He was on our plane."
"And he… He left the island? How?"
Hurley shrugs again, fidgeting with the black piece in his hand. "He didn't tell me that. He just said that we all need to go back. Everybody who left."
The gears start turning in Daniel's head, a low rumble pulsing in time with his suddenly racing heart. "And he knew some way to do that?"
"I don't know. It kinda freaked me out, so I didn't really listen to him."
"Did he leave you with any kind of contact information?" he asks, already digging through his pack for a pen. "A phone number, maybe, or a date that he'd be visiting you again?"
"Yeah, but…" Hurley glances around the room again, like he's searching for an excuse. "I don't even have it with me, it's in my room–"
"Well, could you go and get it?"
He frowns. "I don't know if that's such a good idea, man–"
"Hurley, please."
With a resigned sigh, Hurley pulls the bottom from the Connect Four board, sending all the pieces crashing to the table as he stands up. "I knew I shouldn't have said anything."
Daniel,
If you're reading this, your journal must have made it back to you somehow. That doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility, considering wherewhen we might be.
It took us longer than it should have to understand what happened when the freighter disappeared, and even longer to understand what's happening to us now. Having your journal helped, though I can only understand bits and pieces of it. It's nice to think that you're still helping us, even from so far away.
The survivors from the Zodiac raft told us you weren't on the freighter when it exploded. I hope you're still all right out there somewhere, in your own time. Hopefully I'll be the one to return this journal to you, and you can explain why all this is happening (has happened? will happen?) to the island.
"Writing your memoirs?"
Charlotte turns to watch Miles approach. "Writing to Dan," she says, showing him the journal.
"Yeah, I'm sure he'll get it." Miles plops down on the sand beside her without glancing at it. "Probably hasn't even been born yet."
"You don't know that."
He shrugs and stares out at the dark waves. The soothing sound nearly drowns out the bickering from behind the two of them, further up the beach, where a small cluster of the Oceanic survivors are still stubbornly trying to start a fire.
"Find anything in there about how to stop this?" Miles asks, nodding toward the journal.
Charlotte shakes her head. "Not yet, anyway." Squinting in the dim light from the moon, she finds her place and keeps writing.
We miss you here. Miles misses you too, even if he won't admit it.
It's the strangest thing, being stuck here on the island after searching for so long. This is the place I was born, I'm certain of it, but I feel no closer to understanding why. Why did we leave? Why did my mother forbid me from ever talking about this place? Why did she lie and tell me that I made it all up?
I've been thinking about her a lot today. Wondering what she would say, if she could see me now. I realized that I can't quite picture her face anymore, disappointed or otherwise. I can barely remember the sound of her voice. It's strange to think that the distance from the outside world is enough to make me forget all its details.
"Are you cool?"
Her head jerks up. She stares at Miles. "What?"
He gestures vaguely. "You look like you're pouring your heart out over there, and I just wanna know if you're about to get all emotional, so I can leave before that."
She frowns. "It's nothing like that, it's…" She places the pen in the journal as a bookmark and closes it. "Do you ever feel like… Like you're forgetting something important? More than one something?"
"Yeah." Miles shrugs. "Couldn't have been too important if you forgot it though, right?"
Charlotte's frown deepens, but she nods anyway. "I've been…remembering things, too," she says, choosing her words carefully. "Weird things."
Bits and pieces, fragments of moments like something from a dream. Yellow houses, and a swingset, and neighbors that she doesn't recognize, and yet…
She takes a deep breath. "Miles, are you sure you haven't been to this island before?"
Miles' face clouds over. It's a long few seconds before he finally responds. "Why are you asking me–"
A wordless shout from behind him, sharper than the ongoing squabbling, cuts through the still night air. Charlotte's head snaps toward the sound as one of the distant figures staggers back from the rest, flailing madly at the fiery arrow now embedded in their torso.
The sky overhead bursts into flames, a deadly meteor shower of bright lights raining down over all their heads.
Charlotte is on her feet in an instant and running for cover in the next, sprinting across the wide open sand toward the safety of the trees. There's screaming, chaos, fire everywhere, and cutting through it all is Sawyer's voice, shouting for everyone to meet at the creek.
If she had the time, she'd roll her eyes. There's no way that the unseen assailants responsible for the volley can't hear his instructions loud and clear. She'd bet money that an ambush will be the only thing waiting at the creek, especially for her and Miles, who've yet to find their way into the survivors' good graces.
Miles. A pang of something like guilt twists in Charlotte's stomach. Surely he's right behind her? As she reaches the sparse foliage at the edge of the jungle, she throws a glance over her shoulder to assure herself that she hasn't left him behind to die without a second thought.
A cluster of vines catches her ankle, and she hits the ground hard with a curse. Before she can scramble back to her feet, a hand grabs her arm to haul her up.
Miles. "You okay?" he says in a rush, as if the answer could matter less while they're running for their lives.
Charlotte nods once. A flaming arrow hits the nearest tree, less than a meter away, and she breaks into a sprint once more with Miles' hand now clasped tightly in hers.
"Wait here a moment," the hospital receptionist says, and walks away.
Daniel drums his fingers on the counter impatiently. The phone number Hurley gave him was for a place called the Westerfield Hotel, but he was promptly informed by the front desk that "Jeremy Bentham" was currently unavailable. That fact hadn't changed by the time Daniel showed up to ask in person, but after a bit of persuasion – and no small amount of bribery – he learned that Locke had most recently extended his stay via a phone call from a St. Sebastian Hospital on the west side of Los Angeles.
Unsurprisingly, calling the hospital didn't yield any information, so here he is, pacing in the lobby. Bribery surely isn't a viable option here; if the receptionist returns without any answers, he's not sure what to do.
But he can't just give up now. If there's a way to get back to the island without Widmore, he has to try.
"Faraday?" a voice calls from somewhere behind him.
He whirls around and stares, baffled, at a familiar face. "Jack?"
Jack moves toward him with a frown and shoves him around a corner, out of sight of the very public lobby. "What the hell are you doing here?"
He's angry; angrier than expected, angrier than Dan's seen him since that night on the beach, when he caught him in a lie and screamed in his face. Daniel checks the scribbled writing on his hand, mostly as an excuse to avoid his glare. "I'm, uh. I'm looking for Jeremy Bentham."
"How do you know that name?" Jack asks in a furious whisper.
"I talked to Hurley," Daniel replies, and for a split second, he's sure that Jack is going to punch him.
He doesn't, though; he pinches the bridge of his nose and takes a few quick steps away, calming himself down, before returning to Dan. "What the hell do you want with Locke?"
"It– It's a bit of a long story," he stammers out. "I…just need to talk to him."
"You need to leave," Jack says, motioning toward the exit. "Right now."
Daniel squares his shoulders and shakes his head. "I'm not leaving until I talk to him."
Again, Jack looks ready to hit him, but again, he calms down. "This way," he says curtly, and he starts walking.
Dan follows him through a few doors and into a hallway lined with patient rooms. They stop outside of one, and Jack turns back to him.
"Five minutes, then I want you gone," he says firmly, and then he walks away.
Daniel takes a deep breath and knocks softly on the door before opening it.
The bald man lying in the bed looks up; his face is a mess, bruised all over, and he watches Dan warily. "I think you have the wrong room."
Dan shakes his head. "You're…Jeremy Bentham, right? Or…" He glances over his shoulder as the door closes behind him. "John Locke?"
The man frowns. "And who are you?"
"My name's Daniel." He wrings his hands and takes a step forward, lowering his voice. "And you don't know me, but...you know my friends, Charlotte Lewis and Miles Straume."
Locke's bruised face lights up with recognition. "You were the other one, from the freighter."
"Yeah. Uh..." He drags a nearby chair over to the bed and sits down. "I was wondering if you could tell me how you got off the island."
Locke eyes him suspiciously. "Why do you wanna know that, Daniel?"
"Because..." He chooses his words carefully. "It might help me to find a way back."
At that, Locke seems to relax. "You're here to help me, then?"
Dan nods hesitantly. "I…guess I am."
"Did Charles Widmore send you?"
"Not...exactly." He clears his throat. "Uh, is he... Are you expecting someone, or...?"
Locke shakes his head. "That doesn't matter now. All that matters, is that we have to convince everyone to go back." He leans toward Dan. "You have to help me convince them."
Daniel blinks. "Why, exactly?"
"Because it's the only way to save everyone who was left behind."
"Wait, slow down. Save them from what?"
"From dying," Locke says. "You and all the others, you were never supposed to leave."
"How do you know that?" Daniel asks. "What happened, after the island moved?"
"It didn't stop moving."