"Where are we going now?" It's a question that Daniel has spent the past several minutes building up the courage to ask; since pulling away from Hurley's house, Ben hasn't said a word.
That doesn't change now. He doesn't look away from the road ahead.
"Listen, I did what you asked me to do." That does earn him a quick glance from Ben, a skeptical one, and he adds, "I did the best that I could, okay? So… Can I please have my things back?"
The van keeps moving, and Dan slumps down in the seat with an exhausted sigh of resignation. He's nearly dozing off by the time Ben finally pulls into a parking lot and kills the engine.
Daniel rubs his eyes and frowns at the sight of a large church, looming over everything. "Please tell me that the point of all this wasn't to help me find God," he says, turning to Ben. "Not that locking someone in a coffin for a few hours is entirely ineffectual, but…"
Instead of answering, Ben gets out of the van. With a heavy exhale, Dan follows.
It's not until his tired eyes manage to focus on the statue standing proudly in the middle of the parking lot that he realizes exactly where he is, exactly what church this is, and his blood turns to ice. "What are we doing here?" he asks quietly.
Finally, he gets an answer. "There's a woman here who's going to tell us how to get back to the island."
He stares at Ben. "That's what this is about?"
"Of course," he replies, like it should be obvious. "That's what you've been trying to do for a few years now, isn't it, Daniel?" He gestures to the church – Eloise's church, the place that Dan's death certificate led him to, a lifetime ago. "This is your answer."
"But I'm– I'm not–" He shakes his head. "Damn it, I don't want to go back anymore."
Ben's eyebrows shoot up in surprise. "Why else would you be here?"
"Why would– Are you–" Daniel splutters. "I'm here because of you! Because your people put me in handcuffs and flew me here like a piece of cargo. I didn't ask for this!"
"Well, you're not in handcuffs now," Ben says, infuriatingly calm. "So I suppose the question is, why are you still here?"
Dan's eye twitches. "You have my pack," he says quietly.
Ben opens one of the van's back doors, pulls out his backpack, and offers it to him.
For a long moment, Daniel simply stares at him. This has to be some kind of trick, though he can't fathom exactly how. But he doesn't care anymore, not really; he takes the pack and silently gives its contents a quick once-over to make sure nothing's missing – aside from the cell phone, of course.
"Now, will you come with me?"
He bristles at the way Ben sounds, like he's trying to reason with a stubborn child. It's condescending and insulting and all too familiar. "No." Again, Ben seems surprised by that, and Dan shakes his head. "Listen, if you wanna go back to the island, great. I wish you all the best. But there is nothing left for me there. So if it's all the same to you, I think I'd rather just go home." And he shoulders his pack and turns to leave.
He only makes it a few steps before Ben speaks up behind him. "I can't let you do that, Daniel."
He stops and sighs and turns around, and then he freezes.
"There's a reason you're here, and it isn't something that you can walk away from," Ben says from behind the gun in his hands. "The only way any of us can get back to the island is if we all go, and that means you, too."
Daniel swallows hard. "So, that's it?" he says, with something like a shrug. "Either I go with you, or I die?"
Ben nods. "That's it."
He glances at the church, then stares at the ground for a few seconds. "Fine." And then, with a deep breath to steel himself, "I'm still not going." Ben's expression slowly morphs into one of bewilderment as Dan gives another quick shrug and adds, "If you wanna shoot me, then shoot me."
It's a hell of a gamble, calling this bluff, and it takes every ounce of courage he has to stand his ground, but slowly, Ben lowers the gun.
And slowly, the tension in Daniel's shoulders relaxes. He takes a tentative step back, and then another.
Ben doesn't do anything but stare at him, with a look of vague annoyance. "If you had any idea what I've had to do..."
Another step, and Daniel plants his feet and forces out, his voice stronger than he might've expected, "Good luck, Ben."
Then he turns and walks away, a little briskly, his knuckles white around the strap of his pack.
Finding the payphone down the street takes way too long, and he half expects someone to be waiting there for him, gun in hand, ready to force him into a trunk or a coffin or a burning building all over again.
No one's there. He fishes through his pack for a handful of change and finds the hastily scrawled phone number written in his journal – it's encoded, of course, written in the form of an abnormally large-scale point charge equation that's one step short of being solved.
It takes him longer to dial the number than it does for Desmond to pick up. "Hello?"
"Hi." Dan's throat feels tight. "It's me."
"Daniel," Desmond says like a sigh of relief. "What the hell happened? I've been tryin' to call you back since I got your message. Are you alright?"
There's no way Daniel can answer that. "Can you, uh. Meet me? Somewhere?"
A pause. "Where are you?"
"Los Angeles."
"I know that." Exhaustion colors Desmond's voice. "Why do you think I've been wanderin' around LAX the whole bloody day?"
Dan blinks. "You have?"
"You weren't answering your phone, I…" Desmond's heavy exhale comes through the receiver as a burst of static. "God, Dan, we thought there had to be something bloody wrong, that you were in trouble and you needed help. We made port just so I could hop on the first flight here, to find you, and–"
"I am," Dan interrupts. "I mean, I– I was. In trouble. Uh…"
There's silence on the other end for a long moment. "Where are you? Do I need to come and find you?"
He swallows hard. "Yeah." His voice breaks, and he coughs once to clear his throat. "Yeah, if you... If you can, that'd be. Um. I– I can give you the address." He finds the heavily creased death certificate tucked at the back of his journal and reads off the address of the church.
"Stay right where you are, I'll be there as soon as I can."
The carpet van is gone by the time Dan makes it back to the parking lot. He circles around to the opposite side of the church anyway, sits down on the cool concrete of the steps leading up to a rear entrance and watches the sky gradually lighten with the faint glow of impending dawn.
His breath pushes fog through the frigid air. It's probably warm inside the church, but the idea of having to face his mother again makes him sick. Instead, he hugs his knees to his chest and rests his forehead on his arms and shivers in silence.
Maybe he'll never have to face her again. Maybe it's better that way, for both of them. Maybe he'll get on the boat with Desmond and sail away into a purposeless existence, never to see his mother again, until the time comes to bury her.
He closes his eyes. He shouldn't think that way.
Still, would it be the worst thing in the world if he just…disappears? She wrote him off as dead after only a year. He can't picture her grieving for him, really, so what difference does it make? At least, if he's gone, they can both get on with their lives. He'll be no more than a memory, a bitter disappointment in the end, but that was always going to be the case, wasn't it?
"Daniel?"
His head jerks up, and there's Desmond, striding quickly toward him from the open door of a gray hatchback idling at the curb. Dan gets to his feet.
"Are you alright?" Desmond grips his shoulders to steady him, and that's when Daniel realizes how hard he's trembling.
He takes a deep breath that sounds more like a sob. "No," he admits in a small voice, and his vision blurs with tears.
Desmond hugs him, then, and Daniel freezes up for a few seconds before relaxing against him, clinging to the fabric of his jacket with both hands.
"Thank you," he mumbles into Desmond's shoulder, "For coming back for me."