I Can't Live Until I See You Again (Desmond/open)

[penny]

Penny jumped slightly when they were shattered from their reunion by the man on the couch. she should have been annoyed, but she wasn't. After all, she and Desmond had plenty of time for a full reunion later. For the first time, their lives lay before them with hope and promise, and she knew that nothing was going to keep them apart now. There was much to be said and done and felt, but there was no rush to do it now.

She pulled back and turned to face him, her arm still around Desmond's waist. She began talking at the same time as Desmond, and at first did not hear his outburst. "Yes, of course," she said, still smiling. "Forgive us... it's been so long. It's OK, Des. We were talking."

She put a hand on Desmond's shoulder as she looked at the man again. "Just one minute, alright. Desmond and I need to discuss something quickly, and then I'll be right back to continue our discussion."

Pulling Desmond aside, she said in a low voice, "I take it you know this man?"

[naomi]

Miles held up his hands in the sign of a surrender when Desmond turned to him. "It's alright, Scotsman. I'm not going to steal your girl away. I just want to chat."

He was relieved when Penelope came in. He didn't want to fight the guy.

"Take your time" Miles leaned back into the couch. He could wait. He'd been waiting since they got off the freighter... but what was a few more minutes? He looked at his bulky watch and then back to them.

[Desmond Hume]

Desmond walked aside with Penny. "Yes. I know him, but I don't trust him. He's up to something, and I just don't want him to deceive you or make you be in the middle of bad business. He's apparently looking for a man called Benjamin Linus. I met Ben Linus on the island, and he's far from normal. Always telling some lie or tricking people into doing things that get them killed. I don't know exactly why Miles is looking for him, but I just have a bad feeling." Desmond stopped, grabbing Penny's hands. "I just don't want something happening to you, that's all." He smiled, and released her hands from his.

He nudged her toward Miles, telling her to go ahead and continue talking with him. He didn't know if he was being too fearful of Miles plans or not. What if Miles didn't have an evil scheme up his sleeve? What if he really was doing something for the better? Desmond decided to give him a chance, so he walked over to a chair and sat down, trying to give Penny and Miles a little privacy, but not getting too far away to lose sight of them.

[penny]

"Thank you, Desmond," Penny said, squeezing his hand before going back to sit across from Miles. She took a good look at the man. She could sense there was something about him that was maybe not quite trustworthy. But if he opposed her father, he could potentially be a powerful ally. She meant to find out more about her father's dealings with this man and with Ben Linus.

"All right, then," she said. "I promised I would help you, and even though I no longer need your help finding Desmond, I will keep my promise. But you need to tell me everything you know about my father, the island, and Ben Linus." She looked him in the eye and waited for his response.

[naomi]

"Everything I know..." Miles repeated and looked at his watch, "we could be here for a while..." He gave his trademark smirk and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees sliding foward to look at Penny with a serious expression.

"I know that your father hired me. I know that Naomi had two missions. One to get us to the island safetly and capture Ben. It was my job to get dirt on Ben through the spirits on the island. And two, to spy on loverboy here and make sure he was dead. Needless to say Naomi didn't get to finish that mission and I have no reason to fix that." He shrugged and cast a pointed look to Desmond who was still standing away from them, no one had given him a reason to kill Desmond. Widmore ceased contact with all of the freighter bunch since they got back.

"And now I need Ben to get back and finish what I started."

[penny]

Penny listened to what Miles said with great interest. Clearly, her father was up to something. She didn't know who Naomi was, but the fact that part of her job was apparently to make sure Desmond was dead was all she really needed to know. Her eyes gleamed with fury at this little piece of information.

She always knew her father was a manipulator. She'd generally been able to spot his attempts to manipulate her and sidestep them, doing whatever she wanted behind his back. But she'd had no idea just how dangerous his game really was. From the sound of things, she really didn't know her father at all.

"OK, so you need to find Ben and then you want to go back to this island?" she said. "I don't know quite what my father is up to, but I'm more than willing to help you however I can. What is it about this island that has my father so interested?"

[naomi]

Miles almost scoffed. She really was going to play the game that she didn't know? How couldn't she have known? "It's a research project. You know that much right? Dharma?"

He rubbed the bridge of his nose for a second, still puzzled at how she had to get him to explain all this. "OK. It became a research project. Nobody seems to know how long this island if that's what you want to call it, has really been around. But the things... there's things on this island that are meant to help people, that are meant to seperate the bad from the good, save the world from those bad ones. You get what I'm saying?"

"I wasn't even going to leave the island if Dan hadn't had some stupid plan to rescue everyone." He scowled. "So now you're up to date, what do you know about Linus?"

[penny]

Penny listened carefully to everything Miles had to say. The name "Dharma" perked up her ears, and she found herself thinking back to a time, many years ago, when her father had spent a great deal of time working on something called the Dharma Initiative. She hadn't know what it was then, and she didn't know much about it now, but she did know that her father, even now, kept a lot of files and information about the Dharma Initiative.

"As I said," she began slowly, "I don't know much about Ben Linus. I only met him the one time. But it definitely left an impression on me. He stared right through me with his bulging eyes and smiled coldly. Then he looked back at my father and said, "The island is mine. I will do whatever is necessary to protect it--I will kill for it, if necessary. Then he looked directly into my eyes again, and I literally felt as if he'd struck me. Then, without another word, he left. My father was furious, and he pushed everything off of his desk. I tried to calm him down and I helped him clean up the papers. That was when I saw the file with the name Ben Linus stamped on it. There was also a reference to something called Mittelos Bioscience. I didn't see anything else at the time, but I'm willing to bet that my father still has the file, and that it probably has the information you're looking for."

[naomi]

Miles stifled a laugh at 'bulging eyes'. That jerk. It was only worth keeping him around if he could do something for Miles... which in this case, he could. It didn't surprise him about Penelope's story about Ben saying he'd kill for the island. Not with what he knew. It was exactly what he was trying to exploit the first time he met him. Ben's desire to keep the island safe from Widmore finding it... and him.

Mittelos Bioscience. He ran the name over in his head. He gave a slow smile, she'd given him what he wanted and she might not have even known it. "Unfortunatly your father wants to keep pretending we were MIA and didn't make it off the island it would seem, cause he's sure as hell not in a hurry to get us back there, or even confirm that he knows we exist."

Miles stood up and stretched before ambling towards the exit, clamping Desmond on the back as he did so. "You got a good chick there, man. Take care of her." He said, paying his respects for his new information before exiting out the swinging doors.