Maternity Leave

Jack is sleeping on a couch. Boy, is old man Locke going to be pissed at Jack! Probably going to make him work on the weekend, too! Jack wakes up as Locke enters, and he's not overly thrilled when he finds out he's been roused because Turniphead supposedly has a fever. "Claire was coming here," says Locke, pointedly, and he and Jack both look at the closed-door of the armoury jail where Henry Gale is being held. So it wasn't so much chivalry that made Locke come, as not wanting their little Abu Ghraib to be exposed. Locke asks if Henry's asleep. "Not a sound all night," says Jack. So, asleep or dead, then. Jack resignedly gets up, says he'll be back as soon as he can.

Back on Craphole Beach, Claire's still trying to calm a screaming Aaron, wetting a cloth to cool him down. I've always wondered what they do to babies to make them cry like that when they need to on television shows. Or do they just sit around waiting for a tantrum? When I was a baby, my dad would surreptitiously poke me during church, so I'd start crying and he could take me out and go home and watch the hockey game. Anyway, Rousseau comes strolling up, and by "strolling up," I mean, "does that weird zombie staring walk thing she does." Claire freaks out, yelling. Nobody comes running. Wasn't there supposed to be some sort of guard system at the beach? You know, what with all the people dying? And failing that, can people be bothered to WAKE UP when someone is screaming? Rousseau is fixated on Aaron. "He's infected, isn't he," she says. Claire, who really should have run far, far away by this point, wants to know what she's talking about. Rousseau says Aaron's sick. Claire yells for her to get away. "You don't remember, do you?" says Rousseau, and apparently now Claire does, because we get a rapid-fire succession of images: a crib with a mobile of planes; the door on a stainless-steel medicine cabinet swinging open, revealing shelves full of vaccine bottles; a woman's hands holding some knitting; someone unscrewing the top of a canteen; a woman's face filling the screen; the tip of a needle, and then a very pregnant belly being wiped with a disinfectant before said huge-ass needle is poked in; and Claire struggling with Rousseau. Over top we hear a couple of klaxons with some dude saying, "It's a vaccine. We don't want him to get sick." I didn't recognize the voice at this point.

Anyway, Kate finally comes to Claire's rescue, running up and yelling for Rousseau to get out of the camp. Kate stands there, and comes face to face with what she's going to look like after twenty-five years on the island without a good shampoo and conditioner. Rousseau leaves, and Kate asks Claire what she said. "She said there's something wrong with the baby," says Claire. If anyone would know, it's the crazy lady.

And then Claire's in a white hospital gown, pulled up, revealing her belly, while the presumed doctor puts his hands on her belly. Thing is, we conspicuously can't see his face, so we all know that we're going to know who he is. And given the focus on the Ethan storyline during the previouslies, and that William Mapother's name was in the opening credits, it ain't gonna come as a shock. So the doctor's asking when her last checkup was. Claire answers about as evasively as you do the dental hygienist when she asks how often you floss. I feel bad lying to her; all she wants is to protect me from gingivitis. Claire says she's been really busy, and that she's going to Los Angeles. The "doctor" notes that travelling in the third trimester isn't usually recommended. Claire "explains" that there's a family in Los Angeles that's going to adopt the baby. "Oh, of course. I understand," says the doctor, as if, since that's the case, travelling in the third trimester is perfectly safe. Anyway, the "doctor" says the sedative he gave her was just a mild one, because he knows these exams can be very stressful. As he says this, he makes his way over to the medicine cabinet we saw flashing in Claire's memory. The "doctor" says he's going to give Claire a shot, and as he loads up the needle, the camera pulls back to "reveal" that the doctor is Ethan. He strolls over with the needle, and tells her not to worry, that she's just going to feel a little pinch. And the needles go in and we get some more rapid-fire Claire memories, like...ah, it's the same stuff. Klaxons sound, blah blah.

On Craphole Beach, Claire snaps out of her hypnosis and starts shrieking, despite Libby trying to calm her down. "It was Ethan! I saw Ethan! I saw him! It was Ethan!" Claire, tsk. Libby doesn't even know Ethan.

Kate comes running up, wanting to know what Libby did. Yeah, Libby did something, because it's so unlike Claire to suddenly start screaming. And Claire is completely losing her shit, and she wants Libby to do it again, which Libby won't, and she warns Claire that what she saw could have been a mixture of memories from before the plane crash with stuff that's happened on the island, but Claire yells that it was real. Oh, and also, Aaron is sick, and she's going to yell about that some too. Claire is the new Michael. ["Who?" -- Sars] She yells that the room is real and there's medicine there, and she needs to find it. She asks Kate to help, and after a moment, Kate nods, almost imperceptibly. I think she's a little scared.

Remember how Eko was marking trees because they were his favourite ones? Now he's chopping 'em down. Doesn't seem to be much point to this scene other than to show AAA shirtless.

And we switch to Eko, shirt on, strolling through the hatch. "Hello," he calls out. Jack's in the bathroom with Henry, who's at the sink washing up. Henry looks up when Eko calls out, and asks Jack what's up, but Jack shushes him. So Eko comes upon Locke changing a light bulb, and Locke says, "Howdy," like this scene was originally written for Sawyer or something. "Hello, John. You are alone?" "Not anymore," says Locke, smiling, while in the bathroom Henry starts to ask something and Jack tells him to shut up. Back to Locke and Eko, who was "hoping to borrow a saw," and Locke uses his extensive department-store experience to show him the way. Oh, and Eko happens to glance into the armoury and see a cot. But he doesn't say anything.

On the beach, Kate strolls up to Sawyer, who's reading Lancelot by Walker Percy. And I know I was lying about The Third Policeman and "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," but seriously...oh, forget it. "I need a gun. And you don't get to ask why," she says, and he calls her "Thelma" and says that since he has all the guns, yes he does get to ask why, and she says, "No, you don't," and he says, "Yes, I do," like COULD WE PLEASE MOVE THIS ALONG and then he says he found a new pair of glasses that are "damn near" his prescription, and he puts them on, and they're these huge glasses. So that's where Lauren Bacall put them! Kate admits that she's going into the jungle to track down Rousseau, who Sawyer helpfully identifies as "the French chick." Kate explains that Claire needs medicine for the baby. "She thinks he's really sick. As in quarantine sick." Sawyer asks what Kate thinks. "I think she's a little too worried, but she's going after Rousseau with or without me." "No boys allowed, huh?" says Sawyer. Not really, just no assholes, Sawyer. So he asks if she wants the nine-millimetre or the rifle. If you two are ever going to work things out, Sawyer, I hope for your sake she chooses the nine-millimetre.

So elsewhere, Claire is pawning Aaron off on Sun, who's really reluctant, and suggests Claire should listen to Jack. "What if Jack's wrong, okay? Jack said the fever would break and it hasn't. He's getting worse." She asks how long she's supposed to wait. It might be an Australian thing, but if you did a shot every time Claire said "okay"? Then you died last week. "A mother should not leave her child," says Sun, with some real anguish. But Claire doesn't take too kindly to Sun's judging, and snaps, "I'm sorry, are you a mother?" And Sun says that she's not, and there's clearly a lot going on under the surface with Sun. "Are you sure you want to do this?" she asks Claire, which seems to trigger something in her, and Sun has to repeat it. Again with the memory fragments: some sort of log, Ethan outside telling Claire that she needs to be sure, the plane mobile, the woman saying, "You need to get out of here," an operating room, somebody holding something over Claire's mouth, syringe, canteen.

And then there's Ethan, opening up the cabinet again and filling up a syringe. Claire's sitting up, and she seems kind of out of it. "Do you have to put that in my tummy? It really, really hurts," she says. Ethan gently says that he knows and he wishes there was another way. "But the baby needs it, Claire. Okay?" After a moment's consideration, she says okay. A wider shot reveals that this isn't so much a doctor's office as it is an operating room (judging by the big lights on the ceiling) that's currently doubling as an examination room. So he injects her, and then says, "That wasn't so bad, was it?" And she says, "Nooooooo," really drawn-out and low. She's higher than Paula Abdul. And hey, because she was so good, Ethan's got a surprise for her.

They leave the operating room, and go into a long, industrial-looking green hallway. Even with Claire being all loopy, she still seems a little unnerved. We see a little door with "Escape Hatch" over top. Passing by a circular doorless entranceway, Claire looks up, sees stairs and a ramp, and behind her, sure enough, is the Dharma logo. Ethan leads her past the presumed entrance and takes her to another room -- a nursery. "It's for your baby, Claire," says Ethan. Claire calls it amazing, in the same way that someone who's hepped up on goofballs thinks his own fingers are "amazing." Then she asks what happened to Charlie. "Charlie? Oh, he's fine. When we got far enough away from camp, I let him go back," says Ethan, "innocently." Claire buys it, though. She asks where all this stuff came from, and Ethan says he'd love to explain everything to her, but he's "afraid it would be a little overwhelming right now." Translation: the writers still aren't quite sure where this is all going. Claire touches a monkey decoration on the wall. I'm not sure a Johnny Chimpo motif is appropriate for a baby's nursery, but what do I know?

Then she looks over and sees the crib, with the plane mobile hanging over top. "Go ahead, turn it on," says Ethan. Claire does so, and it plays "Catch A Falling Star." Claire seems quite perplexed, which probably isn't what Ethan's going for here. But someone off-screen calls his name, and he says he'll be right back. "Okay," says Claire, having some difficulty taking her eyes off the mobile.

So just outside the door, Ethan's getting chewed a new one, albeit in a stage whisper, by some guy whose face we can't see. "What the hell happened? You were supposed to make the list and then bring her in. Was I unclear?" Ethan protests that it wasn't his fault, and that they knew he wasn't on the plane, because they had a manifest. Claire glances over, and we see that it's Gruffy McScruffenbeard, only he's not scruffy or bearded at all. Still pretty gruff, though. He continues upbraiding Ethan: "What am I supposed to tell him? You know what he's going to do when he finds out. Dammit, Ethan!" He notices Claire watching them, and he reaches over to close the door. What is with their fascination for lists anyway? Is "making lists" one of The 7 Habits For Highly Effective Others?