(Untitled)

[imthegoodguy]

A few days ago Ben had glanced at the calendar and saw it was his birthday. He told no one about it, barely thought about it, himself, as his actual birthday had passed just a few hours prior to his arrival on this island. His sole reflection was to think of how strange it would be to spend how many number of birthdays on an island that hosted none

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[loaded_wolf]

A large, red wolf came padding over to the man, growling with a fixed look at the stick he was carrying.

"Oh gods, Gavin, please," Angua, who wasn't far behind, sighed. She was dressed in a parka with these ridiculous bright green mittens and matching boots.

"He won't do anything," she assured the man, giving Gavin's bottom a light swat. "He's discovered the game of fetch. It offends him."

[imthegoodguy]

Ben looked at the wolf with a laugh that did not escape his lips. Oddly enough, he didn't seem much perturbed by the wolf. One can only guess he's been approached by large animals in the past.

"I need to walk with this stick," Ben replied. "He has nothing to worry about."

[loaded_wolf]

"You see, he isn't going to throw the stick for you to retrieve," Angua said to Gavin, a wry twist to her lips.

"I think the dog to wolf ratio around here is getting to him," she confessed to the man, as Gavin padded away to sniff at the snow. "I hope you're okay?" She nodded toward the stick, since he needed a cane and all.

[imthegoodguy]

"Oh, you mean this?" He wriggled the stick a bit. "I just barely need it, so I guess I'm just barely okay." After a pause, and a lick of his lips, he added, "It's a long story."

A long story involving destiny and a plane crash and a cranky, lovesick doctor and so on. It wasn't a story Dean Moriarty would tell.

[findaconstant]

Dan has, surprisingly, been able to keep his wits (mostly) about him for these past ten days. He's spoken to a few people, gotten over his fear of eating the food, settled into a permanent bed (number 42, of all numbers) and even mustered up enough courage to go outside and take a look around, which is what he's doing now.

He's walking in large circles with his backpack over one shoulder, looking around. There isn't very much to see in this weather, aside from white everywhere -

White and Benjamin Linus -

Dan freezes, mid-step, and stares.

[imthegoodguy]

He wasn't the only one who had stopped at stared.

Ben hadn't the pleasure of meeting the men and women Charles Widmore had sent after him and the island, but he knew their histories, and he knew their faces, and he knew without doubt that this was Daniel Faraday, one of of Charles Widmore's men.

And he thought John Locke would blow his cover?

" -- well, I suppose you know who I am, then," he said.

[findaconstant]

"Benjamin Linus," Dan immediately responds.

He's still got Ben's picture in his backpack.

[imthegoodguy]

"I suspect Mr. Widmore told you all about me, Daniel Faraday," he replied, gazing steadily at the other man. "Physicist, ex-Oxford professor, member of an expedition team on a freighter called the Kahana."

A pause. He smirked. "I did my homework."

[man_offaith]

John cleaned a knife on his trousers, wiping congealed blood onto the thick fabric before sliding it back into its sheath. He'd trussed up the dead deer out near the barn, hanging it to bleed out into the snow. Soon, it would freeze solid in the cold, preserved with no need for an ice box. He'd have to carve it before then. After he washed his hands and had something warm to drink.

The compound didn't seem so suffocating these days, and even though his legs still tingled now and then, when he came upon a familiar face in the clearing, John smiled cheerfully, knowing he wouldn't be quite so well-received. "Morning."

[imthegoodguy]

"Good morning, John," Ben replied dryly. "I see you've stuck to your old habits. A bit cold for that, though."

He couldn't confess to any jealousy of John's skills, not when he saw them as John's way of giving his miserable life meaning. Ben supposed John needed more meaning here than he did on the Island; after all, there was no Jacob to usher him along to his status as the chosen one.

[man_offaith]

"Cold or not, not too many would turn down fresh meat," John answered simply, and he wouldn't deny there was some comfort in the familiarity of it. Being useful, when he'd felt anything but for most of his life.

[imthegoodguy]

"Except vegetarians." The joke didn't carry as much punch to it as it normally would have. With John, Ben wasn't quite in the mood for joking. Not right now, not right here. He was too concerned about John blowing his cover to be 100% the comedian.