ST Frontier Fleet: Personal Logs

Fresh, clean clothes. Only a short while ago, they would have been an inaccessible luxury. Now, she was rapidly getting used to them again, to the point that they had become once more indispensible. The washing machines in the Swan were a long hike out to get to, but they were worth every trip. Sarah ran her hand over the sleeve of her clean white t-shirt as she walked across the beach, heading towards a blond woman who was standing outside a tent, beating sand out of a pair of shorts.

“You know it would be easier to wash them?” she called over as she came nearer.

The woman looked up, and gave a quick smile in greeting. “I’d be spending my life at it. No matter what I do, the sand just gets in everywhere. How are you?”

“Fine. You?” Sarah returned the smile, and came to a stop when she reached her. “Have you got a moment?”

“Sure.” Libby looked around, gesturing briefly with one arm. “We’ve all got a lot of time these days.”

“Well, I’m not missing the routine of work yet.” Sarah’s face turned more serious, and she lowered her voice. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you. . . uh, professionally. As a clinical psychiatrist. If that’s ok?”

“Psychologist,” Libby corrected her automatically, with a slight smile. “And yes, of course. What can I do for you?”

“Psychiatrist, psychologist... I’ve never been able to remember the difference,” she admitted, in what she hoped was a light tone. She glanced round. There seemed to be no-one within earshot. “This is going to sound strange. But I don’t think I’m crazy. At least, I hope not.”

“You know what they say about people who think they might be crazy.” Faced with Sarah’s mildly puzzled expression, Libby explained: “The fact that you’re wondering about it means that you’re probably not.” She smiled, reassuringly. “Now, what’s all this about?”

“Well... it’s like this.” Sarah kept her voice down. “A while ago, someone –I can’t tell you who– suggested that we were all on this island because we’re being punished. Or, more accurately, that everything that’s happened to us since we got here is a form… a sort of punishment. For things we did in our past life.” She paused, realising how that sounded only once she had said it. She gave a rather uncomfortable laugh. “I mean, our life before we arrived on the island. Anyway, it occurred to me… I mean, I was wondering… I mean, it’s been on my mind a lot, and I…” She paused, and took a deep breath, steadying herself. She met Libby’s calm, reasonable gaze. “Do you think it’s possible at all, or am I going insane? I wouldn’t have asked, wouldn’t have bothered you with this, but… I don’t know, it’s just been… well, as I said, on my mind for a while.”

Libby nodded slowly. For a short while she appeared to reflect on it in silence, while Sarah waited anxiously. Finally, she said: “You heard someone talk about this. When was that? How long ago?”

“Uhm, about… Today is the 17th, right? It must have been just under two weeks ago. I think. When we thought the Others were coming, and we all left for the caves. Before you arrived here, of course.” She thought back to it, and frowned a little. “Does it matter?”

“It does if it’s been bothering you all this while.”

“You think it’s not important? That I should just brush it off?”

“Not at all,” Libby said calmly. “Anything that’s bothering you matters.” Her voice was soothing, but by no means patronising. She gestured towards the far end of the beach. “Shall we go and sit down? On the grass. We’ll be a little more private.” Sarah nodded gratefully, without a word, and followed her. “You’ve been thinking about this for a while. You must have formed some opinion, by now, about whether or not it’s true?”

“About whether we’re being ‘punished’? We-ell…” Sarah was hesitant. “The problem is, that would sort of imply someone was doing the punishing.” When Libby nodded, she went on: “Someone that’s, well, powerful enough to do that. Someone, or something, perhaps, that brought us here. And that brings us into the… implausible.”

“God?” Libby asked calmly.

“One of the, uh, people discussing it mentioned fate.”

“And do you believe in fate, Sarah?”

“Me? No. Well…” Again, she hesitated. “I never used to. I’ve always been a rational sorta girl. Or at least I like to think so. Which is why I’m not happy having all these… doubts.”

Libby nodded once more. “Have you talked about this with anyone yet?”

“No,” Sarah said, shaking her head emphatically.

“Not even Tom?”

“Especially not Tom. I don’t want him to think I’m crazy.”

Libby smiled a little. They had reached the stretch of grass, and sat down. Sarah glanced back nervously towards the camp, but no-one seemed to be looking in their direction. “Then you were right to come to me. It wouldn’t have helped you to keep all these questions bottled up inside. All right, let’s start at the beginning… This person’s words, his or her suggestion, have had quite an effect on you. Is there some reason why you think we may all be here… for a reason?”

Sarah’s frown deepened. “I’m not sure…” she began slowly.

“Let me put it another way.” Libby’s tone was gentle, encouraging. “You don’t have to answer this, but it will help if you do. Is there something you’ve done, at some point in your life, which makes you believe that perhaps, just perhaps, someone or something may want to punish you?”

Sarah was quiet for a very long while. She could not blame Libby for asking. It was an obvious question, and she should have seen it coming. But it was the first time anyone here, on this island cut off from the world beyond, had come close to piercing her own little secret. That anyone had threatened –so to speak– her attempt to start afresh, unblemished in the eyes of her fellows. Not that she saw herself as a criminal. She had made only that one serious mistake in her life, a moment of folly, but it had stained her, inside – stained her self-image, her conscience. Out here, it had been as if the past had been washed clear, as if all could be forgotten. And then, one night, that sudden suggestion: what if, far from cleaning away the past, this island brought it into focus, forced it back into the present, and amplified her guilt… and its everlasting consequences? The very idea was so terrible that it had been a lasting shock upon her mind. And now, as Libby tried to bring her sense of guilt into the open, she was uncertain what to do. She remained untainted in the eyes of the other castaways at least. Did she really want to change that? She had witnessed Sawyer publicly shaming Kate, exposing her as a convicted criminal, throwing the woman’s guilt into all their eyes… which had unanimously reflected condemnation back at the lonely castaway. And then, two days ago, she had been there to see Charlie’s public shaming, to watch every one of his campmates physically turn away from him, leaving him stricken in the cold sea, cast alone with the humiliation of what he had done. His guilt, too.

“Maybe,” she said at last. “I’m not sure myself, to be honest.” She looked into the other woman’s eyes. “But that would imply that we’ve all done something. And how could we all have been brought here? How were we chosen? How could–?”

Libby lifted a hand, quieting her. “Let’s not jump to conclusions,” she said gently. “If we look at this reasonably, we’d have to assume that our being here is an accident, along with everything that’s happened to us. Everything so far can be explained logically–”

“Our surviving the crash?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Over seventy of us survived the crash, yes?” Sarah reminded her pointedly. “Almost all of us were completely uninjured. How likely is that?”

Libby considered that for a moment. “Just because something is unlikely doesn’t make it…” She trailed off. “How do you relate that to…?”

“I don’t. I don’t know. I’m just saying…” She sighed. “Oh, I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m probably just getting concerned about nothing at all.”

Libby nodded slowly. “Perhaps… Or perhaps you – we are missing the bigger issue. Perhaps you’re focusing on the idea of us all being ‘punished’, as you put it, because you’re concerned mainly with… with what you did.” She looked at her seriously. Sarah grimaced.

“Yeah, that’s a distinct possibility.”

“A fresh track for you to consider?” Libby smiled slightly, and Sarah merely nodded, looking rather unhappy at this new turn in their conversation. “Listen,” Libby said kindly, “if you do want to pursue this whole angle on fate and… divine punishment… Well, it sounds as if we’re talking more about religion, and that’s not quite my field of expertise.”

Sarah laughed, briefly and with little humour. “Yeah, mine neither. And since we haven’t got a priest on the island…”

“Oh, but we have.” When Sarah gave her a startled look, Libby nodded. “Didn’t you know? Eko’s a priest. I’m not sure what denomination, though…”

“Eko is a priest?” she echoed. “Oh…”

“You might try talking to him,” Libby suggested. “I’m sorry if I’ve not been much help…”

“No. No you have.” Sarah got to her feet, brushing stray blades of grass off her shorts. “Really… You’ve given me things to think about. And… Well, I’m not sure about seeing a priest.” She smiled a little awkwardly. “I’m not at all religious.”

* * *

London. City of a thousand famous names, of red buses and friendly bobbies, Big Ben and the Thames. For many years she had wondered what it would be like to stroll down its busy streets, soak in the atmosphere, listen to the accents, wander by the riverside. And now that she was here, she found she could not appreciate any of it. She would, in fact, have prefered to go straight home. She had considered staying at the airport, but nineteen hours was a long time to sit in a waiting lounge, and she had hoped the sounds and feels of the city would provide a welcome distraction. Take her mind off… things.

They had, for a brief while. But as she left her hotel and made her way towards the Thames, glancing frequently at her fold-out map, her solitude in this strange country brought her sense of guilt to the fore all the more powerfully, and she longed to leave Europe far behind, forever. There was nothing like being alone in a foreign place to feel broody, to fill oneself with self-doubt.

She had left Paris earlier that day, completing the first leg of her long flight home by a stop-off in London. Her next plane would double back eastward, touching down in Seoul before she finally reached the familiar shores of Australia, and the events of the past few months could be buried safely in a hopefully irretrievable past.

It bothered her somewhat that she should feel so bad about one little mistake. After all, she had not actually hurt anyone, and many people no doubt did far worse on a regular basis, without being haunted by the demon of self-inflicted guilt. But the sharp, severe gaze of that French judge, after the firm hand of the plain-clothes policeman on her arm, had shaken her far more than she cared to admit.

The somewhat murky waters of the Thames flowed by alongside her as she began to follow the river, mimicking the flow of buzy Londoners going about their daily business with barely a glance at one another. She was lost amidst a crowd, anonymous, insignificant, but she realised she drew little comfort from that. In the distance, she could make out the iconic Tower Bridge, outlined through a thin fog. It was going to rain, she thought. She slowed, without quite knowing why, and stopped at an empty bench, sitting down. She wondered –a ridiculous thought– whether she could remain sitting here for the next twelve hours or so. She heard herself laugh briefly, mirthlessly.

For goodness’ sake, pull yourself together! What are you, a crybaby now? You have no excuse to feel sorry for yourself!

She flinched inwardly at her self-rebuke, and gazed out absently at the water.

“Excuse me.”

The voice was foreign, heavily accented, decidedly male… concerned without being intrusive. She glanced up warily, and looked upon a tall, broad-shouldered black man with a kindly face, wearing the plain black suit and white collar of a Catholic priest. Inside, she groaned. There was never a good time to approach her with hopes of conversion and religious salvation, but this man had unwittingly picked the worst time immagineable. She considered telling him she wasn’t interested, but held on to the basic forms of politeness. “Yes?” she asked, with an audible trace of warning in her voice. Back off. Go away.

If he picked up on the hostility in her tone, the man did not react to it. “You look troubled,” he said, much to her annoyance. He gestured at the bench. “May I?”

Sarah sighed. “Plenty of room,” she mumbled, and pushed herself to the opposite end. “Sure.”

“Thank you.” The man’s lips gave a faint, polite smile, and he joined her on the bench, leaving a wide space between the two of them. “Please forgive the intrusion, but you seemed particularly unhappy.” He turned his head to look at her with obvious interest. “I am Mr. Eko.”

“Mr. Eko?” Despite herself, she looked him in the face at last. There was a hint of contempt in her voice, a trace of bitterness. “What kind of name is that for a priest?”

“You may call me Father Tunde if you prefer. It makes little difference.”

Sarah sighed again, and rolled her eyes. “Look, Father, I appreciate whatever it is you’re trying to do. And I realise that, to you, you have some sort of obligation to bring… spiritual help to people, or whatever. But if you’re looking for a lost soul to soothe into your flock, I’m really not it. I’m not even a Catholic, and I really don’t need a priest.”

The tall African nodded slowly. “Sometimes, my child, we do not know what it is we need. But I am not here to convert you in your times of trouble. If you are meant to see the light of God, you will do so. I am only here to give you what help I may.”

Sarah considered a witty retort, could think of none, inhaled deeply, and lowered her head. “I don’t really want attention right now,” she said at last, after a long while, and was surprised at how small her voice sounded.

“And how long have you been alone with your problems?” Eko asked her calmly. She flashed him a look of profound irritation, almost anger.

“What business is that of yours?”

“May I ask your name?”

“It’s rude to answer a question with a question.” She grimaced. “Sarah. I’m Sarah, if you really must know.”

“Sarah. None of us is ever fully alone. We must simply find out how to reach for support.”

“So what do you want from me?” she asked sarcastically. “A confession of my sins?”

“If you would like, I can hear your confession,” he told her kindly. “But I can see that your misdeed is troubling your conscience.” His voice was slow, his words precise and well articulated through his foreign accent. “This leads me to think that you are a good person, Sarah. Whatever it is you may have done.”

She opened her mouth… then closed it again slowly. She looked at him, for the first time without hostility, although her eyes were still wary. “And how would you know?” she asked, provocatively.

“Because you regret.” He moved no closer to her, but there was an almost gentle warmth in his earnest eyes. “It may not be confession, but it is the first step to redemption nonetheless. There are those who confess without sincerity. You are sincere in your remorse, even though you do not confess. God knows what is in your heart.”

“Yeah, well…” She shifted uncomfortably. “Thanks. I think. But that’s mostly just mumbo-jumbo to me.” She got to her feet. The priest remained seated, watching her intently. “I appreciate your kindness, but I don’t need it. And if you don’t mind, I think I’ve had enough spiritual therapy for one day.”

The priest smiled faintly. “Goodbye, then. Thank you for listening at least a moment.”

“Uhm… yeah.” She checked mechanically to make sure nothing had fallen out of her pockets, then glanced down the riverside towards Tower Bridge. “That’s fine.”

“Perhaps I will see you again in the next life.” Still he remained seated, as if quite content to stay on this bench now that he had found it. “Or before.”

Sarah gave a quick, almost scornful laugh. “Pardon me if I’m in no hurry to get there, Father. I’ve still got a bit of living to do in this life first.” She gave him a curt nod. “Goodbye,” she said, and turned away, walking at a quick pace towards the distant Tower Bridge.

She imagined she could still feel the priest’s curious eyes on her back…

* * *

Sarah found Eko some distance from the main campsite, pushing a long, trimmed branch of wood up onto the skeletal structure of a wooden building’s still bare frame. She approached quietly; the muscular African priest seemed intent on his work.

“Hi again,” she said casually, as she walked up to him. Eko turned his head, registered her presence, and nodded.

“Good morning,” he acknowledged her politely, and pushed the wooden pole up further, before securing it in place with some sort of strapping.

“Building yourself a bigger house?” she asked curiously. She glanced round, taking in the wooden logs piled nearby, alongside a smallish axe.

“Not quite.” Eko smiled, and brushed the sand and soil off his large hands. He turned to face her fully. “This is the Lord’s house,” he explained to her reverently. “I am building a church for my brother.”

“Your brother?” She gave him a surprised look.

“It is a long story.” He glanced at his work for a moment, nodding quietly to himself, then focused on her once more. “Is there something I can do for you, Sarah?”

“I think there may be.” She managed a slight smile. “At least, Libby thinks so. I’m taking you up on an offer you made to me a few years ago.”

“A few years ago?” This time, it was Eko’s turn to appear confused. “I don’t understand.”

A faint smile played on Sarah’s lips. “This is the third time we meet, Father. I bumped into you in the airport in Sydney, and I’ve finally remembered where it was I’d seen you before… why you looked so familiar. London. Don’t you remember? By the Thames. You came to me; I was sitting on a bench… You seemed to think I might need a priest. Well…” She paused, took a deep breath, and looked him straight in the eyes. “Third time does it,” she told him seriously. “I’ve come to confess.”

Eko looked at her for a long while, searchingly. She held his gaze without flinching. He seemed to be peering straight into her soul, and for a moment she felt the skin on her back crawl, but she held her ground firmly.

“London…” the priest said at last. An absent look drifted into his dark eyes. “London… seems such a long time ago now. But yes, of course. I remember you, Sarah.” Again, that faint smile. “I remember telling you… that you’re a good person. I’m afraid my church isn’t quite finished yet. But if you’d like to step inside…”

“Uh, yes. OK.” A little nervous, she moved under a thin wooden beam, into the bare structure. “Look, I’ll come straight to the point. I’m not sure I should even be here, and maybe I’m wasting your time, but… I’ve just talked to your friend Libby.” And she told him. The conversation she had heard between Sun and Shannon. Her doubts and fears. The thoughts that had tormented her in the Swan. What she and Libby had discussed. Eko listened with silent attention, his face serious but not judgemental. When she had finished, she moistened her lips uncomfortably. “So I was wondering… theologically speaking… What do you think? Is there such a thing as… I don’t know… divine fate?”

“Have we undergone judgement already, you mean?” Eko fingered the small wooden cross he wore around his neck. “That is not how God’s justice works. We are still alive; we cannot yet receive final judgement. There is still time for each of us to do good or bad, redeem himself and find salvation in the eyes of the Lord.”

“So…” She looked at him hopefully. “You’re saying everything that’s happened here is just coincidence? It has no… meaning?”

Eko shook his head slightly. “I do not know what has meaning. But you must trust in one thing, Sarah.” He placed a hand gently on her shoulder. “The Christian God is a merciful God. This would not be His way.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” Sarah admitted with a quick sigh of relief, although she was not entirely certain why. It was not as if she even believed–

“I will hear your confession now.” She looked up at him, startled and almost alarmed, drawing back a step or two on instict. “If you will give it to me.”

“Uhm…” She swallowed nervously. “I’m not sure…” Eko did not move. There was something both intimidating and comforting, fatherly about his patient gaze. She bit her lip. She had told no-one on the island. No-one… “You have this… thing called… priest-sinner confidentiality sort of thing, yes?”

“Yes,” Eko assured her. “What is said in this church remains in this church. It is for the ears of God alone.”

“Well… and for yours, too,” she pointed out, with an awkward little smile.

“I am but the instrument of God,” Eko told her gravely.

“Yes, but you’re human too.” Sarah paused. She exhaled quietly, and closed her eyes briefly. “All right. It was in Paris… A few months before I first met you. I was in this demo…” Her throat was dry. She swallowed again. She had rarely felt so nervous. “I… swung a glass bottle towards a policeman.” She looked up into his eyes anxiously. “I was arrested, charged…” She trailed off. “There you have it.”

“And this,” the priest asked seriously, “is the worst thing you have done?”

“I think so, yes.” She nodded earnestly. To her great surprise, Eko smiled slowly.

“In that case… Through the ministry of the Church, may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

She met his gaze again, and grinned slowly. Despite her disbelief, she felt, strangely, as if a weight had just been lifted from her shoulders. “Well… That’s done, I s’pose. I wasn’t actually asking you for absolution.”

Eko brushed the comment aside. “One day, you may be glad for it, and realise what it means.” He looked at her seriously. “Even if you do not believe, Sarah, you have been penitent, and I believe you sincerely regret all you have ever done that is wrong. There is no cause for you to be punished. Not any more. I believe now, as I did when we first met, that you are a good person.”

Sarah shrugged awkwardly, uncertain what to say. “Well… Thanks for the vote of confidence.” She moved a few steps away, through the still unbuilt wall, until she was standing outside the ‘church’. “I do appreciate your help. And I’m sorry if I bothered you. I’ll… uhm, let you get on with your… building.”

Eko nodded. He barely seemed to be paying her much attention any more. His eyes were turned up towards the heavens, and he was observing the structure of his roof.

“I hope you may go in peace now,” he said, distinctly. But Sarah had already walked away.

* * *

That night, she lay in her tent in her (freshly washed) pyjamas, holding up the book And Then There Were None above her and leafing through it absently. It was too dark to make out the words, but she was not trying to read it anyway. She had borrowed it off Hurley, before realising that she no longer wanted to read it. It merely served as a memory of doubts and fears she had now discarded. Or was trying to.

She flipped through to the final pages, then set the book down carefully atop her neatly folded clothing. She would return it to Hurley in the morning. Perhaps its effects on his imagination would not be quite as disturbing as on hers.

She pulled the flap of her tent fully down, and turned to settle for the night. Barely had she set her head down on her pillow, however, when three loud shots rang out close by outside, causing her heart to lurch and miss a beat. She sat up, her eyes wide open.

Those guns! Those damn guns! Who was firing them now? Or is it the Others? Are we under attack? She scrambled out of her tent, worried and alert, in her nightwear.

“…so busy worrying about each other you never even saw me coming, did you? How about you listen up because I'm only going to say this once.”

That voice. That cocky, arrogant American drawl. She moved closer, and in the dim glow of the fire her gaze fell upon Sawyer. All eyes were upon him. He had a rifle propped over his right shoulder, and was surveying his gathering campmates with triumphant confidence. Sarah glared at him. She had –as the proverbial saying went– a rather bad feeling about this.

“You took my stuff,” Sawyer accused them collectively. “While I was off trying to get us help –get us rescued– you found my stash and you took it, divvied it up – my shaving cream, my batteries, even my beer. And then something else happened. You decided these two boys here”– he indicated Jack and Locke, who were standing side by side, looking, for once, equally stunned – “were going to tell you what to do and when to do it. Well, I'm done taking orders.”

Sarah bit her lip, glaring at him. She could understand the feeling, but having Sawyer in charge was far, far worse. She trusted him less than she did the other two; at least Jack had their best intentions at heart. She held back a little, scowling through the shadows, and listened. They all did. The American had found a captive audience.

“And I don't want my stuff back,” he went on. “Shaving cream don't matter; batteries don't matter. The only that matters now are guns. And if you want one you're going to have to come to me to get it.” Sarah’s lips thinned, but she kept her thoughts to herself, and followed the man’s gaze as he looked over at Sayid. Even through the gloom, she could just make out the expression on the Iraqi’s face, and it made her shiver. Sawyer was unfazed, confident in his sudden victory. “Oh, you want to torture me, don't you? Show everybody how civilized you are. Go ahead, but I'll die before I give them back. And then you'll really be screwed, won't you? New sheriff in town, boys! You all best get used to it.”

Sarah rolled her eyes at the dramatics, but inside she felt very much concerned. Through the darkness, her gaze met Tom’s worried face, and they exchanged a meaningful look. They were finding themselves trapped in a power struggle between Sawyer, Jack and John, with convict Kate hovering ambiguously on the margins. The leadership of their small camp was locked in the dispute between those three men, with the rest of them excluded more than ever. And whatever the outcome, she was going to find it difficult to entrust her fate into the hands of the victor. Tom shook his head slowly, and she wondered whether he was thinking the same as she was.

They want to keep us out of their affairs; fine. It’s time we steered clear of them, too. She had been willing to follow Jack for a time, but if it was going to be petty squabbles at the top, the bulk of the survivors were going to have to fend for themselves. We’re not alone, she reminded herself, Tom and I. They had friends. Steve, Jane, Nikki… If it came to that, she told herself grimly, the Big Three would be surprised to find how many of their campmates were quite prepared to cope without their exalted leadership.

She smiled without humour. Sawyer’s focus was mostly on Jack, John, Sayid, Ana-Lucia and a few others. But in the dark air and the light of the fire, Sarah could see other faces. Jane, hanging back near her tent, wary. Paulo, his eyes narrowing slowly into a scowl. Manuel, scratching his neck and smiling grimly. Jin, who, although he did not understand Sawyer’s words, had caught the gist of the situation, and clearly was not happy about it. Eko, his dark face calm but disapproving.

And Tom, watching her with meaningful determination, as though his thoughts matched her own.

Sawyer had control of the guns, but there were about forty survivors here on the beach, many of whom cared little for the struggle over weapons they had never had access to, nor wanted. Sarah wondered how long it would take until they decided they were not taking orders from anyone. She looked round the assembled people as they slowly began to disperse.

No more, she thought firmly. That’s enough. Sawyer could keep his guns, and the pleasure of having Jack and Kate beg for them.

The next time a crisis occurred, they would organise themselves to face it on their own.

* * *

Sarah pulled her covers more tightly round her, snugly. She stretched, yawned, and sighed, content to remain where she was for at least a short while longer. It had been so long since she had woken up in a bed, she felt she could allow herself the luxury of enjoying it while it lasted. There was, after all, no pressing need to get up, unless the computer alarm started beeping. For now, all was peaceful and quiet. The filtered, artificial light glowed through the shuttlers from an unseen source. She turned her head, resting it on the comfortable pillow, and gazed out at the empty room. It was like being in a large flat, somewhere in a city. As if the jungle and the island just beyond these walls did not exist at all…

Finally, she pushed the covers off herself, yawned again, and stood, walking bare-foot across the smooth floor towards the bathroom. She was still a little sleepy, but it was nothing that a nice long shower, with real soap and shampoo, would not cure. She smiled as she locked the door and took off her nightwear. The small things in life…

She had arrived at the Swan late the previous night, finally taking Jack up on his reluctant promise to let her help out once Sawyer was healed and back on his feet. It was now four days since Shannon’s funeral, and Sawyer had returned to the beach. This morning, she had the Swan almost to herself. With all its little luxuries, she thought, still smiling, as she enjoyed the warm water rinsing over her body. Yes, she reflected idly, living down here was definitely something she could get used to.

After drying herself over and getting dressed in a fresh set of clothes, she made her way to the kitchen, humming softly. Somebody had left a bowl out for her, next to a packet of breakfast cereals. She soon located milk, fruit juice, a glass and a spoon, and lounged back in the sofa. She picked up And Then There Were None, and flicked through it absently as she ate.

The alarm rang out, loudly.

Putting down her book and bowl, she hurried into the next room, just as she heard the sound of someone typing on the computer’s keypad. Eko looked up at her as the alarm ceased, and the counter flicked noisily back to a reading of 108. She smiled at him, wiping a spot of milk off her lip.

“Eko. Good morning. I didn’t realise there was someone still here.”

“Good morning, Sarah,” the tall, muscular African greeted her with his slow, careful pronunciation and thick foreign accent. He stood, pushing back the stool. “I was just leaving. Would you mind taking the next shift?”

“Not at all. That’s what I’m here for.” She brushed a strand of her still damp, untidy hair from over her forehead.

“An interesting place you have here,” he commented casually, looking round the computer room as if seeing it for the first time. “And you have no idea what its purpose is?”

“No idea,” she told him. “We just push the button because… because we just push the button.” She laughed lightly. “I s’pose it gives us all something to do.”

Eko nodded, apparently accepting that. “If you’ll excuse me now, I have work to do back at the camp. Something I should have done a long time ago.”

“That’s fine, I can handle things here.” She glanced at the counter. “Have a good day, mate,” she told him warmly. Eko gave a thin smile. She watched him leave, and wondered again where on Earth it was she had seen him before walking right into him at Sydney airport. He did not appear to remember her at all. Perhaps they had just crossed paths in the street one day, and his face had been etched for some reason onto her unconscious memory… After all, they had both been in Sydney. She shrugged the question off again. It seemed of little importance.

There was over an hour and a half to go before the computer began screeching for attention, but she sat down on the stool nonetheless, looking at the empty screen idly. She heard the metal door creak and clang shut as Eko left the Swan. She was alone now… Alone in this mysterious place that had once, twenty years ago, been under constant scrutiny, and now seemed almost abandoned. She found herself tapping her fingers against her thigh thoughtfully, gazing at the computer screen without really seeing it… After a while, she shook her head, stood, and returned to the living room to fetch her breakfast. She brought it back into the computer room, and ate it silently, opening a page of her book at random to pass the time.

…The mouth of the trumpet was against the wall, and Lombard, pushing it aside, indicated where two or three small holes had been unobtrusively bored through the wall. Adjusting the gramophone he replaced the needle on the record and immediately they heard again “You are charged with the following indictments––”

Sarah turned the page. She remembered how it went, of course, albeit it not down to the slightest detail. An incredibly good thriller, and a baffling mystery. She had been about eleven or twelve when she had first read it, sitting alone at her father’s house in Sydney, in the front room. It had been a hot, almost sweltering summer day, but that book had made her shiver. She had been unable to put it down until she had finished, and by the end she had been jumping at shadows.

She took another spoonful of her cereals, chewing quietly, and flipped forward several pages.

Blore turned his square shoulders slightly and viewed the last speaker thoughtfully.
“You think not too, General?”

General Macarthur said sharply:
“Of course it won’t come. We’re counting on the motor-boat to take us off the island. That’s the meaning of the whole business. We’re not going to leave the island. . . . None of us will ever leave. . . . It’s the end, you see––the end of everything. . . .”

Sarah shivered, as she had done all those years ago, and set her spoon down in her milk with a slight splash. The air in the computer room had turned suddenly colder. She closed the book, and pushed it to the other end of the desk. She glanced up at the counter. 99 minutes…

She chewed her lip, thinking. There was little else to do, at least for the next two hours or so. She was alone with her thoughts. And memories.

How long had it been since they had crashed here? Fifty-three days? Not all that long, really. Objectively speaking. Not even two months. And yet so much during that time had changed. They had all adapted –if you could call it that– to surroundings and events none of them could have believed possible. That first night, they had all been so certain rescue would come; not a shadow of a doubt. Why would it not? That question itself still remained unanswered. They had waited… and waited… And then that injured man had died. And then Scott. And Boone. And… Fifty-three days. It might as well have been an eternity. It was an eternity.

Because we’re not going to leave this island… None of us will. Not ever.

She thought back to what Sun had said, just over a week ago, that night at the caves. “Do you think we’re being punished?… The secrets we kept, the lies we told…”

“The secrets we kept…” she barely heard herself repeat the words, a mere whisper. Of course, in her case, there had been no secret. Despite the crowd, no anonymity. A pair of eyes, right behind her… No opportunity to lie. Except here, on this island, where she was a stranger once more, to everyone. Where she could lie, and keep her shame to herself. Would she have felt any less guilty, she wondered, if she had not been seen? Probably not.

“The secrets we kept…”

“Do you think we’re being punished?”

Perhaps… The thought came to her hesitant, unwilling mind. There was no shying away from it here. Time, perhaps, to face it. To accept a possibility that, to a rational mind, seemed meaningless, mad… Could it be that they were all being punished? Somehow, by someone or something, every single one of them? That they had all been on that plane, and that they had crashed, because they had been meant to come here, all of them? Cut off from the rest of the world, for all eternity. Never to get off the island. Just them, alone. Forever. Eternity: a form of living hell…

Could it be that she had to accept it? And what would happen if she did? Her lips parted, very slowly, with the utmost hesitation. She whispered…

“I’m being… punished?”

Shifting on her stool, she lifted her fingers to her mouth and bit her nails, tensely. The room was quiet, cold… oppressive. She withdrew her hand, looked at it, and glanced up anxiously at the counter. 91 minutes.

“But I’ve already been punished!” she blurted out, a sudden burst of anguish reflected in her dark eyes.

“Mademoiselle Sarah Ng. In view of the charge against you…”

* * *

The large Place de la Bastille, in the heart of Paris, was crowded with cars, buses, vans and pedestrians, and when Sarah approached hesitatingly, she could not help but wonder whether she had got the wrong time, or even day. She glanced at her watch. After making her way here hurriedly from the Portail d’Arabie restaurant, she had arrived less than five minutes early. Surely, if there was a protest march organised, the roads would have been cleared of traffic? She looked around, a little confused. People moved past her, unconcerned, talking in French.

“Sarah! Par ici! On est là.”

She turned, and smiled as she saw Myrtille waving at her. Her friend, in her eclectic style of brightly mismatched clothing, stood on the edge of the square’s wide pavement with several other people, not all of them young. Now that she had focused her attention, Sarah could see a much larger group of people a little further away. Reassured, she walked over to join them.

“Ca va, Myrtille? [I thought I might have missed you.]”

“[No, no.]” Her fellow student laughed. “[We’ll still waiting for a few people. I’m glad you’ve come.]” She gestured at two men in their early or mid twenties beside her. “[This is Yves, and Rachid.] Les mecs, je vous présente Sarah. L’Australianne dont je vous parlais. C’est sa première manif’.”

“[Nice to meet you],” Yves said. Sarah began to extend her hand to shake, but the young man laughed. “On est en France, ici!” he reminded her, and kissed her on both cheeks, the standard greeting. Rachid did likewise. “[Do you like it here in France? Here, have a beer!]”

“[I’m enjoying it, yes. Thanks,],” she said, accepting the bottle and returning the smile. “[And this is a nice warm afternoon too, isn’t it?]”

“[Right.]” Myrtille touched her shoulder. “[The others are moving. Let’s go.]” Passers-by cast them a mildly curious glance as they mingled in with the crowd of protesters. Sarah remembered, as she joined in the group’s fairly slow pace, that she still had no idea what it was they were protesting about. She glanced at Myrtille, who was unravelling some sort of banner with three others. “[Do you want to help us carry this?]”

“[Uhm… sure.]” She looked up ahead. She estimated there were about a hundred people, perhaps even less. They were chanting and holding up signs, making their presence very visible, but it was nonetheless a remarkably small procession. Nothing compared with the tens and even hundreds of thousands she had heard about or seen on the news in previous weeks. “[I’d have expected there to be more people?]” she mentioned, queryingly.

“Y’en aurait eu beaucoup plus, si on avait eu l’autorisation préfectorale,” Rachid muttered in response. Over the sound of the chanting, and occasional hoot of loud party horns, she could not quite make out what he had said.

“[Sorry, what?]”

“[I said],” he repeated, more loudly, “[there would have been a lot more of us if the préfecture had authorised us to be here!]”

“[Wait…]” She stared at him. “[You mean– ]”

While she was looking at him, she had not been paying attention to what had been happening ahead, and when those in front of her came to a sudden stop she walked right into them. “Pardon, désolée!” she apologised hastily, and tried to look over their shoulders. They had come to a standstill. She heard sirens wailing, loud and very close. Trying to drown them out, the chants of protest had turned to boos and cries of anger. She turned to Myrtille. “[What’s going on?]”

Her fellow student scowled tensely, gazing past her. “Comment on dit, en anglais? Ze cops.” She pointed. Sarah tried to rise onto the tips of her toes, then jumped up to catch a glimpse of what stood in their way. Three police vans had lined up beside the road, disgorging at least two dozen men in dark uniforms, complete with black helmets, shields and truncheons. Sarah’s eyes widened in alarm, and she turned to Myrtille again.

“Those are the CRS!” she blurted out, switching to English without even realising it. “They’re the bloody anti-riot police! What the hell’s going on?”

The young woman brushed off her comment as if it were of little concern. “[Relax. The CRS turn up every time we go on a demo without authorisation. Then they’ll claim we were rioting, and the government can justify cracking down further. It’s always that way.]”

“[But why are we here if we’re not allowed to be?]” Sarah pressed, growing increasingly worried. “[There are plenty of authorised protests all the time!]”

Myrtille gave her an almost condescending look. “[Of course, you would say that. I suppose in your country– ]”

“CETTE MANIFESTATION NE DISPOSE PAS D’UNE AUTORISATION PRÉFECTORALE!” The booming voice of a riot police officer blasted over her through a loud speaker, only a few metres up ahead. “DISPERSEZ-VOUS DANS LE CALME !”

“[You heard them],” Sarah said. “[We have to leave. Come on.]”

“[Like hell!]” Yves said defiantly. “[They’re provoking us. We stay.]”

“[Are you crazy?]” Sarah gestured towards them wildly. “[They have riot gear! Shields, truncheons! And they have the law on their side.]” For all the Australians’ reputation of defiance towards authorities, Sarah had no desire to make a stand against truncheon-wielding police officers, just for the sake of it.

“[Relax,]” Myrtille told her calmly. “[Nothing’s going to happen. I’ve been through this lots of times.]” She did look rather tense, however.

“[I’m a foreigner here],” Sarah reminded her, increasingly stressed. “[I don’t want to break the law. They could deport me!]” She shook her head. This was getting out of control. “[I’m getting out of here.]”

“DERNIER AVERTISSEMENT! DISPERSEZ-VOUS, MAINTENANT!”

“[Form a chain!]” The shout rose, defiantly, from the front of the group. “[Link arms, form a chain! We stand ground!]” Other shouts echoed the first one. The crowd of protesters shifted, people pressing towards the front. Jeers and taunts rang out against the police. Sarah caught a brief glimpse of them in their dark costumes. She saw an officer lower the visor over his helmet, a grim smile appearing briefly on his face.

“[Myrtille!]” she said, urgently.

“[The bastards are going to charge],” the young woman said, a flare of anger in her eyes.

“[Come on! We have to get out of here, now!]”

“[We stay until they advance.]” Stubbornly, the French woman stood still, firmly, crossing her arms over her chest. Up in front, the shouts of anger intensified… merging suddenly with dull, repeated thuds and cries of pain. The crowd surged forward as the riot police slammed forward into the human chain of protesters who had linked their arms in defiance. Protesters, held still by one another in the chain, unable to ward off blows, fell to the street, beaten down by the fierce slam of truncheons. Sarah watched, horrified.

“[They’re… they’re beating them down!]” she gasped, barely believing what she was seeing. “[But… they’re defenceless!]” Officers grabbed stricken protesters off the ground, hauling them to their feet, still struggling, and carried them off to the vans.

“[Bloody cowards!]” Yves screamed, furious, and hurled a half-empty can of coke towards the police. It hit an officer on the helmet, and the man took half a step back, as if dazed. There were cheers, savage laughs from the crowd. Sarah could feel the protesters surging all around her, pressing in on her, throbbing as if one… She raised her arm, still holding an almost full bottle of beer, swung it back –

A hand gripped her wrist from behind, hard and firm. She let out a cry, the bottle slipping from her fingers and smashing against the pavement. She tried to turn, but someone grabbed her other arm too. Right behind her, a young black man in civilian clothing looked at her severely, his gaze hard, harsh.

“[That’s enough from you. I’m arresting you for attempted assault against the forces of the law. You’re coming with me.]”

* * *

Sarah rested her forehead against the desk, sighing deeply. The thunderous blare of the alarm jolted her up, and for a moment she felt completely disoriented. Gone was Paris, almost to a whole different world; she was alone in the computer room, and the counter had just ticked down past four minutes. She sighed again, deeply, and turned to the keyboard, typing in the series of numbers that was remarkably easy for her to memorize. 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 –

“…and 42,” she muttered to herself, her fingers pressing the keys. She tapped ‘Execute’, and the alarm fell silent. For another hundred and four minutes.

No doubt she would return here again, over the weeks, months and possibly years to come. The thought was profoundly depressing. She pressed her head on her hands, resting her shoulders on the desk, and watched the counter tick down to one hundred and seven. Could this be it, then? A lifetime pressing a button, as punishment for one brief mistake, a mere swing of the arm in anger one sunny afternoon half a world away from here? With no hope of escape except through death in some utterly meaningless accident, like Arzt or Shannon… Was that what lay in store for them all? Death, one by one, like the ten guests in Agatha Christie’s novel? Perhaps the guiltiest, here too, would die last of all. She wondered where she ranked… Abruptly, she laughed, without humour.

Pull yourself together, girl. I’m not going to go insane.

A hundred and six minutes. She stood, gathering up her empty bowl and glass to go and wash them in the kitchen sink. Routine… Routine set literally by the clock. A countdown that went nowhere, perpetually renewed, never to reach zero. Eternal repetition.

She thought of Sisyphus, while she washed her bowl. The ancient Greek murderer who had tricked and defied death itself, before ultimately being confined to hell and condemned to push a heavy rock up a slope over and over, without ever successfully reaching the top. The parallel, she thought sombrely, was frightening.

She dried her glass mechanically, and glanced back towards the computer room.

If this were hell, she thought, it would probably involve eternal, meaningless repetition of the same act, leading nowhere. A look of fear entered her eyes.

* * *

November 15th. 55th day on this island.

Dear diary… I haven’t been back to the Swan at all these past two days. I’m not sure quite how to explain it, but it makes me feel uncomfortable. There’s something ‘unreal’ yet oppressive, depressing about that place. I wonder whether the original inhabitants ever felt watched? They were being, of course, and thinking back now I really felt as if there were eyes on the back of my neck the whole time. Maybe that was just guilt speaking. I thought I might find answers there, but instead I’m left mainly with doubts. I don’t yet–

“FIRE!!”

She scrambled out of her tent, tossing her pen back in, and the shouts reached her from all around. It was night. The roar and crackle of flames in the trees rushed up at her. She ran towards the blaze, mechanically, moving with the others. There was a hint of panic in the atmosphere, but already Sayid’s voice rose above it, calling out quick and urgent instructions. The flames engulfed the trees on the very edge of the settlement. She watched, horrified.

“Grab tools, containers for sand, anything you have,” Sayid told them. “If we don't stop it, it's going to burn right through the camp.”

Sarah nodded, looking around anxiously. She had no idea what to look for, what to use… Plastic bottles with water? No; that would be pointless. Containers? They had no containers! Crouching down, she tried to scoop up as much sand as she could in her arms, and ran up to the blaze. The heat blasted over the skin of her face as she tossed the sand. It seemed to have little effect.

Wet sand, she thought, quickly. Wet sand will work better. Need to get to the water…

“We need to cut a fire break right here,” Sayid instructed over the rising chaos. “Form a bucket line.”

“Bucket line,” she said to herself. “Right.” They had buckets?

“Some of you people down to the water!” Locke called. He had buckets – somehow. She followed him almost without thinking, and he thrust a container at her. Others ran with them. Splash, splash, splash went their feet as they ran into the cold water and scooped water up as quickly as they could. On the beach, a line was forming, between the sea and the fire. Sea, fire, sand… How had the blaze started? No time to wonder now. She felt a little disoriented by the suddenness of the emergency, and passed her almost full, heavy bucket on quickly to someone – Michael. She watched it be passed up the line, into the dark and the fierce light of the flames, and waited for the empty bucket to be returned to her. The cold water rippled and lapped round her legs with the faint tide, soaking her pyjamas. She shivered.

Michael handed the container to her again with urgent speed, and she filled it up as quickly as she could. They were, she thought suddenly, like a frantic line of ants, all working together... for once. Again the bucket returned to her, and again she filled it up. Mechanically.

The fire still raged perilously close to the camp. It had almost reached Tracy’s tent.

“He’s got my baby!! Stop it!!” She looked up, alarmed, and thrust the container at Michael once more. Claire’s voice, distraught and panicking, rose above everyone else’s in the darkness. “Charlie, stop! Help! Somebody help! He's got my baby!!”

Beside Sarah, Locke turned and ran. Sarah followed him, barely thinking, leaving it to Michael to pull up water. A small group of them gathered round Claire, who was standing at the water’s edge. They all faced Charlie. The young former rock star stood in the sea, watching them warily, almost like a cornered animal. He clutched Claire’s baby close to his chest, defiantly. Sarah stared, aghast.

“Help!” the frightened mother cried. “Come on, Charlie, please! Stop it!”

“I just wanted to save him!” Charlie tried to explain, in a strange voice. His words, to Sarah, made no more sense than his actions. She found what she was seeing almost impossible to believe. Charlie… so friendly. Carefree, yet dependable. She struggled to reconcile what she knew of him with what she was seeing now. It was only after several long, confused moments that she realised she knew very little about Charlie Pace at all. Back before the crash, in a whole other world, before she had met him, he had been a celebrity, a public figure. She knew he had a brother, a niece, that he was from Manchester. Everyone knew that. But the real Charlie, beyond the gloss his celebrity appearance, his public image? She was forced to admit, with some dismay, that he was as much of a stranger to her as anyone else here on this island… even now. Perhaps him grabbing Claire’s child and running into the ocean did make sense, somehow, to him. Perhaps she had misread him completely, missed out on his more private side, unknown to his fans and the rest of the world. He stood, holding the baby very close, and watched them, tensely.

Sarah stood with the others, in the half-darkness, silent. The waves lapped at the sand with a steady rush before them; behind, the fire crackled and blazed.

“Charlie!” Locke called. His voice, calm and demanding, held the authority of an older, more reasonable man than the almost pathetic-looking, cornered rock star. “Give me the baby.” Sarah shook her head, quietly. She had trusted Charlie implicitly, and had always kept away from Locke. Had she been entirely wrong about him, too? The sudden thought that she was surrounded by strangers, their pasts and motivations hidden from her, was an unpleasant reminder of how little they knew one another. She shivered.

“Eko, tell them.” Charlie turned in desperation to the one person he thought might be sympathetic in the small crowd. Sarah glanced at the tall black man, enveloped in shadow. “Tell them, Eko. Tell them what you told me – that the baby has to be baptized.”

Eko’s voice bore an almost gentle rebuke, with a definite touch of sadness. “This is not the way.”

Eko… Baptised… Something stirred in her mind at that, but was gone the next moment.

Locke was equally calm. Sarah, feeling incredibly tense inside, could not fathom how he managed it. Shouts from those struggling against the fire a few metres away sounded strangely distant, disconnected from the unfolding drama. “Charlie, come on, give him to me.”

As the voices around him pressed in on him with almost gentle sternness, isolating him completely, Charlie seemed on the verge of breaking down. “Who the hell are you, John?” he lashed out. “Aaron's not your responsibility. Where were you when he was born? Where were you when he was taken? You're not his father! You're not his family!”

“Neither are you, Charlie.” Sarah winced at Locke’s simple words. In spite of herself, she felt a sting of sympathy for the trapped man, his eyes wild as he realised he had no support from any of them. Sarah said nothing.

“I have to do this!” Charlie insisted. “I need to. I'm not going to hurt him.”

It was hopeless. Claire’s painful plea was the last straw. “You’re hurting me, Charlie…” Charlie was defeated. He did not resist when Locke took the baby from his arms, and returned him to his immensely relieved mother. Claire turned and walked away quickly, without so much as a word. Sarah found she could not blame her.

“Claire.” Charlie began to move after her. Sarah tensed again. She opened her mouth to tell him not to… No words came. She did not know how to talk to him. He was, she felt, no longer the same Charlie, a stranger, and she could not think of the words to talk to him anew. He too had now become a closed book, mysterious, discomforting and vaguely threatening. She felt suddenly dizzy, and a little sick. Pity. She felt pity for him, his helpless voice, the expression on his face, what he had made himself into in her eyes just now – in all their eyes. “I'm sorry, Claire–”

He got no further. Locke stood in his way, and, as Sarah gasped in shock, punched Charlie viciously in the face, once, twice, a third time. Thwack-thwack-thwack. There was no pity there, no kindness or mercy, and Locke’s face was hard as he turned away from the stricken man. Charlie had collapsed in the water, and half-pushed himself up, but did not stand. The small crowd around her murmured, and began to disperse, some returning to the fire. Within moments, Sarah stood alone. She stood motionless. Even from a distance, and through the dark, she could see the expression on Charlie’s face. Confused, dazed… in shock. Almost like a child, she felt… They had all turned their backs on him. He did not even try to get up.

Her feet carried her forward almost before she could decide it, walking into the water in her already drenched pyjamas. Charlie looked up at her, his face bloodied, his eyes questioning and uncertain, barely seeming to recognise her. The water splashed around her ankles, droplets splattering against his bruised face as she reached him. She crouched down, and held out her hand. Her face was hard, almost as hard as Locke’s. All the more so for the pity she felt in her heart. She could not cope with it now, could not understand, and her eyes revealed nothing of the confused sympathy she was struggling with inside.

Charlie hesitated, his own eyes wary, then took her hand, clasping it firmly. She helped him up, then yanked her hand free. He lowered his head, and she saw shame on his face now.

She turned without a word, waiting just long enough for him to look up – for him to see the hard look in her gaze. Then she turned her head away towards the remains of the fire, and walked away from him too. Leaving him on his own.

Yet as she returned to those who were putting out the last of the flames, it was she now who felt inexplicably alone…

* * *

Admiral Lonal, Starbase Earth
Personal log.

It seems like so long ago since I left Starbase K'taria to lead our forces from the Sol system. In fact, it has only been a couple of weeks. After Sol was taken from the Federation and Earth and its neighbouring planets were occupied, I left K'taria on board my personal warbird, the RNS Fire Owl. When I arrived here, Starbase Earth, a new Romulan Starbase in orbit of the planet, was already under construction, and I did not have to wait long to take up residence here. The war was going well at that time. We had just conquered Earth and were planning to attack nearby Federation systems. No one would be able to oppose us.

And then the Borg came. The Andor system, far away from here, near the Klingon front, was all but obliterated. Millions of lives were lost in the Borg assault. Admiral Vulnis, in charge of all military operations in that region of the empire, hastily scrambled a fleet of 25 out-dated warships and personally led the attack on the Borg cube in his warbird. I sent reinforcements, but they would not arrive in time. Admiral Vulnis was on his own.

And yet, despite the odds being against him, he and his fleet hit the cube with every weapon at their disposal... and won. When the battle was over, Admiral Vulnis' attack fleet had been greatly reduced in size, and many brave soldiers lost their lives that day... But the universe was safe from the Borg threat once again. Inspired by this great, miraculous victory, all Romulans throughout the empire strived to work and fight even harder in honour of the heroes of Admiral Vulnis' fleet.

The boost in morale led to more and more victories for the Romulan Star Empire, and I had the good fortune to be the architect of some, if not most of them. I realised that we had been silent for too long. We had allowed the Federation to survive and the Ferengi to expand. Their ships roamed freely along our borders, occasionally trespassing into our territory and scanning our systems. Although the Federation could no longer harm us, the Ferengi continued to taunt us by expanding their influence and persuading alien races to take up arms against us. They had to be stopped. We could no longer complacently sit by and only act when a ship entered our territory. We had to take a more active part in the war against the Ferengi.

For that reason, I sent a task force consisting of six destroyers, two scouts, two battle cruisers and four troop transports to sector S-9, the same sector I had told the reinforcements to go when Admiral Vulnis needed help fighting the Borg. Our ships had detected a wormhole in that area, which led to an area of space, a dozen sectors away. The wormhole's exit point was only a few sectors removed from Ferengi space. Using the wormhole, the task force was able to take the Ferengi forces by surprise. While they fought off any Ferengi presence and attacked them from behind, conquering the Arvada system in the progress, I ordered the Romulan forces at Sol to attack the Ferengi from the right. After we destroyed a few of their outposts with great ease, our adversaries quickly went on the defensive.

The tactic was a success. The Ferengi were unable to oppose our forces and retreated to their inner systems, leaving the outer systems vulnerable. As one task force kept the Ferengi busy, two other task forces conquered two of the outer Ferengi systems -- Quadra Sigma and Thetis quickly fell into our hands. Meanwhile, I had sent a task force to a nearby Federation system too -- the cursed Titus system, site of a Romulan defeat at the hands of the Federation a few months ago, was finally ours. We took over the system before the Federation could mount a defence. However, the other Federation systems in the area have now all powered up their orbital batteries and have started to dig themselves in. They will not fall as easily as Titus had... But they will fall.

And so, after a mere ten days of extensive fighting, the Ferengi have lost three systems, half their outposts, and they are cut off from their allies, the Federation. The end will come to them soon. We are picking off their outposts and their systems one by one. Soon, they will no longer be a threat to us. The Federation and the Klingons have already been reduced to mere nuisances, and nobody even remembers the Cardassians anymore. There is no doubt who the victors are in these parts of the galaxy: the Romulan Star Empire will soon have dominance over all.

End personal log.

Sarah had returned to her tent for the night, despite the attractive prospect of a real bunk bed to sleep in at what the others still called “the hatch”. The place remained a little too strange to her, compared to her familiar tent, and something about Jack, Kate and Hurley’s overall behaviour was making her feel strangely nervous. She could not quite put her finger on it. It was as if they had finally entered a world of their own, separate from that still inhabited by Sarah and the other survivors. She could not decide whether she wanted to be part of it, force her way in if necessary, or whether, on the contrary, she wanted to distance herself from it at all costs. Jack was confiding entirely too much in Locke and Kate, and those were two people she did not want to get close to. . . even if they allowed her.

Besides, she thought as she lay on her worn blanket, snuggling close to a cushion she had taken from the Swan, who could get any sleep with that eerie alarm going off every hundred and four minutes? Saving the world, Hurley had said… A figure of speech, surely. But what did happen when they entered that same series of numbers into the antique computer over and over again?

She had looked through the notebook again that evening. Was this the same ‘Swan’ that had been under observation two decades ago? Why had someone been watching it – and, more puzzling still, why had someone written down all the irrelevant, every day acts of its occupants? Subject four chopping fruit… What could possibly be meaningful about that? Had Desmond, the man Jack had found in the Swan, been one of those subjects? Or possibly one of the observers? And where was he now? Why had he run off when Jack and the others had arrived?

So many questions… She held distinct pieces of a same puzzle –the notebooks, the Swan– but had no way to make them fit. It was a genuine mystery, and incredibly frustrating.

What about the other places that were being watched? she wondered. The Flame, the Hydra, the tantalisingly-named Looking Glass… If the Swan was here, on this island, then were those other places here too? If so, it suggested that there were many mysteries still to be uncovered out in the jungle – hidden places, just like the Swan with its computer and modern conveniances concealed on a deserted island. But where to start looking?

She was drawn abruptly from her musings by a woman’s scream from outside. Sitting up quickly, she listened, nervous, but there was no further sound. All was still…

She hesitated a long while, then emerged from her tent cautiously, looking round. The camp fire was still burning. A few of the castaways had come out of their shelters, but were not straying far. A hushed silence had fallen on them all. There were a few worried whispers.

“It came from over there, I think,” she heard Jane say in a low voice to someone half-concealed by shadows, pointing. They had all learnt to be careful. Sarah shook her head.

Someone could be hurt, she told herself. Before she could talk herself out of it, she set out across the sand, in the direction Jane had pointed. She could hear murmurs from those wondering what she was doing, but she ignored them. Moving round a cluster of tents towards an open stretch of sand, she saw two figures standing fairly close. In the dim light of the camp fires, she was able to make out Charlie and Claire as she drew nearer. Charlie was holding Claire’s baby, talking to him softly, fussing him while the child’s young mother watched on.

“Sorry…” Sarah said awkwardly as she approached. “Am I intruding?” She felt suddenly a little foolish, but the fact that she was not alone in having left her tent told her she had not imagined the scream.

“No, no, not at all.” Charlie glanced over at her, before turning his attention back to the baby. “If you’re wondering what the noise was all about, Shannon had a bad dream, apparently.”

Sarah looked around. They appeared to be alone.
“Where is Shannon?”

“Oh, Sayid’s with her,” Claire told her, seeming a little distracted. “Just a nightmare, he said. Not that I’m surprised, on Monster Island.”

Sarah smiled slightly, relieved. “Monster Island. Hurley was calling it that earlier today.” There was no reply. Claire and Charlie seemed entirely absorbed with each other… or rather with the baby. Was it her imagination, or did Claire look distinctly uncomfortable?

That’s none of your business, she told herself firmly. “Well…” she said, a little awkwardly, and managed a brief laugh. “I just wanted to make sure. If everything’s ok… I’ll get back to bed. Good night!”

“Good night,” Charlie said absently, without looking up. Claire echoed him belatedly as Sarah was already turning to walk away.

When it’s not alarms waking you up to push buttons, it’s screaming neighbours with nightmares, she thought, sighing, as she lay back down in her tent a few moments later. She yawned, and pressed her head against her new pillow, closing her eyes.

* * *

Sarah lifted up the flap to Tom’s tent, pretending to knock as she did so. She found him inside, reading. He looked up with a smile.

“Have you got any clothes to wash?” she asked cheerfully.

“Clothes?” He stood, and joined her outside. “I’ve always got clothes that need washing. Damn sand… Are you offering to do my washing?”

She laughed. “No, I’m offering to take you to a couple of real washing machines. Since they’re there, it seems a shame not to use them. Especially since hardly anyone knows about them yet.”

“At the Swan, you mean?” When she nodded, Tom looked thoughtful. “Well… It’s an excuse to go there, I suppose. Does Jack know you’ve told me?”

“I’m sure he knew I would,” she said lightly. “It’s not his hatch, anyway. And we agreed I could let you in on the ‘Big Secret’.” She spoke the latter words with sarcasm, then smiled again. “C’mon. You can’t believe that place until you’ve seen it. And the computer room is like something out of 1950s sci-fi.”

Tom hesitated only briefly. “All right, then. Give me a moment to find all my socks…” Sarah giggled. “It does seem weird, doesn’t it?” her friend said, rummaging round his tent. “Knowing that there’s actually a computer within walking distance from here.”

“Forget the computer,” she told him cheerily. “It’s the waching machines I’m after today!”

Tom chuckled. “Didn’t you say there was a shower, too?” When she did not immediately reply, however, he looked back over his shoulder. “Sarah?”

Sarah had been distracted by people starting to move down the beach, off to the right. She frowned a little, wondering what was going on. They looked excited. She motioned for Tom to come out of his tent.

“Something’s happening…”

Together, they joined the small flow of people, leaving the camp itself and hurrying down the beach. There was a gathering occuring up ahead, around… She stared.

“Jin?” she exclaimed, startled.

“Where?” Tom asked, surprised. She pointed. He was being greeted by the other castaways, Manuel shaking his hand warmly, Nikki hugging him. “Oh. But…”

But Jin was on the raft, Sarah completed his thought silently. He should have been far out at sea by now. He could definitely not have found help and come back; he had left only four days ago. It was only as she hurried over to him, a few moments later, that she noticed he was not alone. A man and a woman accompanied him, standing back a little, out of the way. Tom saw them, and looked at them curiously.

“Rescuers?” he asked, dubiously. Sarah shook her head.

“No. Look at their clothes. They’re in a worse state than ours are.” The woman, a blond in her thirties, wore a flowing beige garment that seemed to have been cut out of a bag; she held a makeshift walking stick, as did her male, middle-aged, ill-shaven companion. The latter’s clothes were badly torn, particularly his trousers. Both carried several bags, and seemed geared up for a long hike. The woman was smiling tentatively at a few of the castaways, speaking only a few words.

“Jin!” Sarah grinned when she reached him at last; he smiled, and gave her a brief but warm hug. “Good to see you, mate! What happened out there?” She looked around quickly. “Where are Michael and Walt? And Sawyer?”

Jin’s smile faltered a little, his face taking on a far more serious expression. The others pressed round, anxious for information. His sudden appearance, reaching the beach from the jungle and not from the sea, without his raft-mates but with two strangers, was raising a great number of questions.

“Michael… OK,” he reassured them, in his hesitant English.

“And Walt?” Sarah asked, concerned. “Where’s Walt? What happened to you, Jin?”

“Walt…” Jin repeated slowly. A grim shadow seemed to cast itself across his face, and he turned to his travel companions. The blond woman stepped forward.

“It’s a long story,” she told them, her voice equally grave.

“Well, tell us!” Nikki demanded, even as Manuel asked, almost suspiciously, “Who are you?”

“If Michael’s OK, where is he?” Charlie added, worried.

“Michael should be getting back to you any moment,” the woman assured them. “He’s fine. I’m Libby, by the way, and this is Bernard. We’re survivors from the crash. Just like you.”

The man identified as Bernard was looking over them, shaking his head in apparent amazement. “My god, there are a lot of you… You all look so healthy.”

“Survivors from the crash?” Nikki echoed, confused. “No, that’s…” There were murmurs from the assembled crowd.

“We were in the tail section of the plane,” Libby explained quickly. “We’ve come from the other side of the island. We thought we were the only ones, too. When we found Jin here, on our beach, we were as surprised as you are now.”

“How many are there of you?” Manuel asked. “Just the two of you?”

“Four,” she answered promptly. “Bernard, me, Ana and Eko.”

“Never mind that,” Tom cut in impatiently. “Where are Walt and Sawyer?” Jin was already moving off, towards the camp, as was Bernard. Sarah considered stopping him, until they knew what was going on, but Libby, her face grim, seemed willing to stay and cope with their barrage of questions.

“Walt…” She inhaled slowly, and looked at them all with what seemed like genuine sorrow. “Walt was taken by the Others. Or so your people have told us. Taken from the raft you built. Sawyer was shot–”

Sarah let out a gasp of horror, lifting her hands over her mouth and staring at the woman in numb shock. She heard cries of dismay and disbelief from those around her.

“He was shot, but he’s alive!” Libby went on hurriedly. “Eko took him to your doctor. You have a doctor, yes? He’s… he’s in a bad state, but I think he’ll be ok.” She turned her head, looking over towards Jin, who had found his wife and was embracing her. Those who had not yet heard Libby’s words were still celebrating their Korean friend’s return.

“So you… what, carried Sawyer all the way across the island, to get him to Jack?” Sarah said, in a whisper, barely able to speak. She shook her head. This was all too much to take in. They had all believed –all wanted to believe– that the raft and its crew were out there, a long way away, safe, that nothing could happen to them… “My god, who would kidnap a child?”

“There were two children with us,” Libby said gravely. “The Others took them, too, a long while ago now. I don’t… I don’t know where they took them. We haven’t heard… never seen them again since.”

“The Others…” Charlie sounded as if he were trying hard not to panic. “We have a baby here. Could they have followed you? Could they be coming here?”

“They… they were close, yes… I don’t know.”

“They could be coming for Aaron, for the baby! You led them right back here to us!” Charlie accused, furiously.

“Hey!” Manuel turned to him. “Calm down.”

“But you heard what she–”

“The Others know where we are already,” Manuel reminded him. “There’s no reason for them to come now rather than at any other time.”

“I’m sorry,” Charlie snapped, “but somehow I don’t find that very reassuring! You can all do what you want; I’m going to make sure Claire is all right.”

Sarah watched him run off. The others were beginning to drift back towards the camp, following him. Some distance away, near the tents, Michael had just appeared. She shook her head, and swallowed, still shocked and very uneasy. She could barely begin to imagine what Michael had to be feeling…

She turned to Libby. She and Tom were almost alone with her now. There was a long moment’s silence.

“I’m sorry about Charlie shouting at you,” Sarah said, at last, uncomfortably. “He’s just upset, and worried. We all are.”

Libby nodded. “Sawyer said one of the Others kidnapped a pregnant woman from you once. But you’ve only seen that one man. We… The Others have attacked us several times.” She paused. “There’s more.” She looked each of them in the eyes, briefly. “And I’m sorry, but it’s bad.” Another pause, barely an instant, for them to brace themselves. “One of your people… The blond girl, early twenties… Shannon.”

Sarah closed her eyes, slowly. Please, no… Surely it couldn’t get worse. Surely –

“She’s dead.”

* * *

They stood round the open grave, most of the survivors gathered yet again to bury one of their own. Sarah stood next to Tom, who had his arm round her shoulder, comfortingly. Nikki stood nearby, sniffling, trying not to cry, while Paulo whispered something to her gently. Sayid was closest to the grave, standing apart from the others. For once, the Iraqi soldier’s calm, impassive face was distraught, filled with emotion. And as the breeze played gently with her hair, Sarah could not help but think how meaningless this all was. Shannon’s death… Sudden. Absurd. A split-second accident that had left yet another one of them dead.

“Shannon and I were strangers,” Sayid began, his calm voice tense with restrained grief. “We never would have met if– We wouldn't even have spoken if– But we did meet and we did speak. At least– I loved her.”

Sarah swallowed, hard, her eyes stinging with warm, painful tears. She had not even known Shannon herself. They had hardly ever spoken. A brief ‘good morning’, now and then, a few words of casual conversation, time fillers when they happened to cross paths. . . Meaningless, too. Yet it was all she could remember of the young woman.

And she can’t have been much more than twenty, she thought, the first tears trickling down her cheeks. Younger than me, even.

Jack had walked up to the grave, and Sarah forced herself to watch, drying her eyes. Their doctor let a trickle of earth fall over the young woman’s body, wrapped in tarpaulin… a poor substitute for a coffin.

“May she rest in peace,” he said simply.

Others began to file forward slowly, silently, following the one ritual, together, which could restore some measure of meaning to this tragedy. Libby had explained everything. Shannon and Sayid had come across the survivors from the tail end of the plane, and their leader, Ana, had been armed, expecting the Others to appear any moment. A gun in the hands of a frightened woman. Shannon’s unfamiliar face, appearing from between the trees… It had all happened in a moment.

Manuel was pouring a trickle of earth into the grave, Michael following him. Sarah watched, moving silently into the file of mourners paying their last, ritual respects. Tom squeezed her shoulder gently, comfortingly, and walked with her. No-one spoke.

She looked round. Libby and Bernard were both there, joining in with their little community – their new home. So was another of the tail section survivors, a tall, broad-shouldered man with very dark skin: Eko. Sarah’s gaze lingered on him. There was something about him that had been nagging at the back of her mind, although she had barely had the opportunity to see him yet. It clicked as she picked up a handful of earth, moving round the grave with the quiet, solemn procession. She had seen him before, at the airport in Sydney. They had bumped into each other, quite literally. She remembered he had seemed familiar then, which was why she remembered him now. His face had been familiar, and his voice… She shook her head, almost imperceptibly. She still could not place it, and now was not the time to worry about it.

Ana, the woman who had shot Shannon by accident, had not joined them. Not that Sarah could blame her. It was going to be incredibly difficult for her to be accepted among the survivors on the beach camp, and showing up at the funeral would only have made things worse. So far, Sarah had only caught a glimpse of her, from a distance. The woman had isolated herself, for now at least.

Sarah reached the side of Shannon’s grave, and looked down sombrely at the motionless figure wrapped in tarpaulin. She averted her eyes quickly, feeling tears well up in them once more. “Rest in peace,” she whispered, very quietly, as she let the earth trickle down from the palm of her hand. Then she moved on, trying her best to hold in her tears, and stopped a few metres from what had become, tragically, the community’s graveyard.

She sat down on the sand, without quite knowing why, biting the tips of her fingers and gazing out absently at the campsite, barely seeing it.

She was joined by Libby before Tom could reach her. The woman sat down beside her, quietly for a few seconds. Sarah turned her head slowly to look at her.

“I didn’t know her,” she said, feeling a sudden need to say something. “I didn’t know her, really… She was a face, a name… an impression. I didn’t even like her, at first. I never made the effort…” She stopped, and swallowed, hard. Tears ran down her cheeks slowly. Tom joined them silently, sitting on the other side of her, and taking her gently in his arms. Sarah kept her eyes on the blond woman, Libby. “I didn’t know her brother, either.”

“Her brother?” Libby asked, softly.

“Boone. Did nobody tell you? He died in an accident… it must have been a week ago today. I talked to him, once or twice… But in the end, he was still a stranger.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I remember that frightened me…”

“Being buried as a stranger?”

She nodded, the faintest of nods. “Horribly selfish of me…” she whispered, and wiped at her eyes. Tom gave her a quick hug.

“No it wasn’t,” he said. “You cared. You cared for him. And for Shannon. That’s what counts.”

“But it seems… empty, doesn’t it?” Libby said. “Meaningless.”

“Yes! Yes, that’s exactly it. To survive the crash, start to build a new life here, and then…” She trailed off, biting her lip hard so as not to cry. She looked at Libby almost fixedly. “How did you cope? Just the four of you. All those weeks, with the Others knowing you were there.”

“There were over twenty of us at first.” Libby glanced back towards the jungle, then looked at her and Tom again. “A few died of injury, illness… But mostly, they were taken by the Others. Just before we met you… just before Shannon died… there were still five of us. The Others took Cindy, so fast we never saw them. She was just… gone. Like that. That’s when Ana got the gun out, and we… we were panicking. The danger was so close, so real…”

Sarah nodded, slowly. “How many are there?” she asked softly. “The Others?”

“I don’t know.” Libby looked down at the sand between her feet. “We never see them. They move without a sound, without leaving a trace. Ana… was under more strain than you can imagine. Everything she did, she did to try and keep us safe.”

“I’m not accusing her…” Sarah whispered. Libby gave her a faint, grateful smile.

“Didn’t you try to hide?” Tom asked. “When your group was small. You could have stayed mobile. Eluded them.”

“We did, eventually. We moved off the beach. Eventually we found a… I’m not sure how to describe it. A sort of bunker. Deserted. Empty. It was shelter, and the Others never came to us there.”

“A bunker?” Tom exchanged a glance with Sarah. A slow, curious expression came over the latter’s face, edging out her raw emotion at the funeral at least for a moment.

“Was there a door?” she could not help but ask. “With… some sort of logo?”

Libby gazed into her face, and Sarah could have sworn she was searching, questioning, trying to read her eyes…

“There was what you might call a logo,” she said at last. “On the wall. Quite large, in black paint… An octogon, I think. With the word ‘Dharma’, and an arrow in the middle.”

“An arrow?” Sarah echoed, intrigued. In spite of what they had just been through, she experienced a brief thrill of excitement. “Was there… anything else? Anything at all in the bunker?”

“No. As I said, it was deserted.”

“No computer, then?” she pressed, despite herself. “Even if it didn’t work?”

“A computer?” Libby sounded genuinely surprised. “No, no, nothing at all like that.” She watched her curiously. “Why? Don’t tell me you’ve got a computer here?”

“Sarah will keep on asking questions as long as you can answer them.” Jack crouched down to face them, and nodded at each in turn. “Yes, we’ve got a computer, in our own bunker. Not that it’s of much use per se; its functions are… well, ‘rather limited’ would be putting it mildly. I’ll tell you about it later.”

“Actually, Jack, since you’re here,” Sarah told him, “I’d like to talk about it now.” She got to her feet, drying the remainder of her tears, and the others stood with her.

“What is it you want to talk about?” Jack asked patiently. “Now may not be the most appropriate time.” He glanced back towards the graveyard.

“Yeah, well it rarely is the appropriate time. But actually, this time it really is.” She paused, trying to bring some order to her thoughts. “I’d like to help out, as a matter of fact. You know, take another shift saving the world. Or two, or three, or more… Keeping everything hushed up is going to leave you a bit short-handed, so I’m offering to help.”

“That’s very good of you.” His voice was neutral, making it impossible for her to tell what he might be thinking. “Feel free to come round and push the button whenever you want, Sarah.” Libby looked from one to the other, obviously lost.

“Look, if you’re discussing something I shouldn’t know about…”

“No, that’s OK.” Jack kept his eyes on Sarah’s face.

“Great, then,” Sarah said, trying to make her tone equally neutral. “I’ll be round later today.”

“Anything else?”

Libby shook her head. “Listen, I don’t think this concerns me. I’m going to go and see Ana. She’s going to be in need of a friendly face.”

Sarah nodded almost absently while the woman walked off. Her attention was on Jack. “Yes, Jack, something else… I’ve been thinking of moving into the Swan. As in, you know, settling there.” She glanced at Tom, feeling just a little guilty at the look of surprise on his face. “It was designed to be lived in, so why not use it properly? And if I’m there, I can take as many shifts as necessary. Ease a bit of the burden off the rest of you.”

Jack gave what sounded like a brief laugh. “Well… That’s very generous of you. I think. But right now, Sarah, that really wouldn’t be convenient. I’ve got a patient in there, Sawyer, and I don’t need more people just hanging around. I need the bed for Sawyer, he needs a lot of rest, and I don’t want people crowding in on him. That’s my order as a doctor.”

Sarah held his gaze for a long moment, then grimaced briefly, and nodded. “All right.” She paused. “How is Sawyer, anyway?”

“Very weak. The wound was infected… He’ll live, but…”

“Yes,” Sarah said quickly. “I understand.” Another pause. She moistened her lips, hesitating briefly. “The Swan… the bunker. Once you’re no longer using it as a hospital. Have you considered that it’s pretty much designed to be… well, almost a fortress?”

Jack observed her face carefully. “I’d ask what you’re getting at, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

“I’m thinking,” Sarah told him firmly, “we should start seriously considering how to use that place as a fortified base. You heard Libby. If we had any doubts at all, we know now how dangerous these ‘Others’ are. They can strike us at any time. We can move people in there, the most vulnerable at least, keep them safe. Claire, the baby… We have to start using our ressources intelligently, think ahead. Libby said the Others were very close yesterday. They may still be close by, watching us. They have a thing about kidnapping people, it seems; if we–” She stopped. Jack was shaking his head. “What?” she asked, frowning.

“Look. Maybe it’ll come to that. I don’t know. And now that we’ve got the hatch, Sarah, yes, we’re going to be thinking about what to do with it. Don’t think I haven’t considered all this already. Just… What I need you to do for now is… just give us time to think things through. I’m not going to start frightening people by telling them to move to the hatch. Especially not while I have a patient in there.”

“A patient who was shot by the Others,” Sarah reminded him pointedly. “We know they’re armed now.”

“And so are we. And they know it.”

“Yeah, see, that’s not reassuring me. Jack, most of the people here” –she swept her arm out towards the camp– “don’t know anything about what’s going on. That makes them vulnerable, defenceless. I know you don’t want to cause a panic, but maybe it’s time we started getting people concerned about our safety, when we know there is something to be concerned about. I know you’re doing your best, but if we could make sure everyone stays informed–”

Jack sighed, lifted his gaze briefly towards the skies before looking at her again. “OK, Sarah,” he said, and she could hear his patience begin to slip. “I hear what you’re saying. Again, you’re not telling me anything I haven’t asked myself already. But I have to start wondering about all your questions. What you think you’re trying to do here.”

“I’m sorry… what?” she gave a brief, incredulous laugh.

“Are you trying to be group leader, Sarah?” he asked, very seriously. She shook her head, amazed.

“No, Jack. I’m not trying to–”

“Because it strikes me it’s easy to criticise. And you’re becoming very good at that. Now if you have suggestions to make, I’m always glad to hear them. But unless you’re willing to actually try and look after everyone yourself, take on some responsibility for your words…” He stopped when he saw Sarah shake her head wordlessly, a look of irritation on her face. “Right,” he said. “I thought not. Well, if you’ve finished with your questions for today, Sawyer needs me. And that’s something I can actually do. So if you’ll excuse me.”

She said nothing as he turned and walked away. Everyone else had made their way back to the camp by now. She sensed Tom looking at her, and turned to face him.

“What?” she asked, irritably. He shook his head in turn.

“Nothing. Come on; let’s get back to the tents.”

* * *