Spoilers for this episode and earlier episodes of Lost.
Jin brings the wounded young Ben back to the Dharma barracks, where Juliet struggles to keep him alive. Sawyer asks Jack to operate, but Jack refuses, believing he should stop trying to control events on the island. Kate donates blood and speaks with Roger about his son. When Juliet cannot provide the surgery Ben needs, Kate decides to take him beyond Dharma's fence and seek help from the Others.
Sawyer joins Kate rather than stopping her. Together they carry Ben into the jungle, where Richard agrees that he may be able to save him. Richard warns that the treatment will change Ben, take away his memory of what happened and make him one of the Others. Kate and Sawyer accept those terms. Richard carries the boy into the Temple, dismissing another man's suggestion that he seek permission from Ellie or consider Charles's response.
Flashbacks explain Kate's decision to return without Aaron. She visits Cassidy and gives her money for Sawyer's daughter, Clementine, eventually admitting the truth about Aaron and the rescue story. Later, after briefly losing Aaron in a supermarket, Kate decides to stop pretending he is her biological son. She tells Carole Littleton that Aaron is her grandson and that Claire may still be alive. Kate leaves him with Carole and returns to search for Claire. In 2007 on the Hydra island, the adult Ben wakes to find Locke sitting beside his bed.