Sawyer surfaces in the ocean after the attack on the raft. The raft is burning, with pieces of wreckage floating everywhere. Michael is heard screaming for Walt repeatedly, and Sawyer screaming for Jin. Sawyer decides to rescue Michael first, and swims over to him, dragging him onto a piece of flotsam and performing CPR.

On their makeshift raft, Michael blames Sawyer for making him fire the flare, drawing their attackers to them. Shortly after, something pounds on the raft from below. When Sawyer and Michael investigate, they see the distinctive fin of a shark. Michael blames Sawyer's bleeding wound for attracting the shark, and this devolves into an argument which ends when Michael orders Sawyer off his piece of raft. Sawyer complies, moving onto another piece of the raft, but soon the two are arguing again. Sawyer's piece of raft disintegrates, forcing him to rejoin Michael.

As they continue to float along with the current, one of the raft's pontoons appears, and they decide to board it. Sawyer swims to the pontoon, giving Michael his gun in case the shark appears. When it does, Michael fires several times, apparently injuring the shark, which breaks off. Michael numbly swims for the pontoon, where Sawyer waits for him.

During Michael's flashbacks, he remembers his early custody struggles with Susan, who has asked Michael to sign away his paternal rights to Walt. Though Michael initially resists, suing to keep his rights, he eventually relents as Susan persuades him to doubt his own motivations and whether he is pursuing his own desires or Walt's best interests. As part of the flashback there is a parting scene between Michael and Walt. Michael gives Walt a toy polar bear.

When day breaks on the raft, Michael is crying. He realizes that he should not have brought Walt with him on the raft, even if all he really wanted was to be with his son. Michael tells Sawyer that Walt's kidnapping was his own fault. At this point, Sawyer notices that they are back at the island. When they wash ashore, they are greeted by Jin running toward them, hands tied behind his back, shouting the word "Others", and fleeing a group holding him captive.

Back at camp, Claire discovers Charlie carrying the Virgin Mary statue stolen from the Beechcraft 18, but does not know about the heroin contained inside.

After Kate disappears into the hatch, Locke descends as well, finding an unconscious Kate in the computer room. An armed Desmond walks up behind them, and asks Locke if he is "him". Locke at first claims to be the person whom Desmond is seeking, but fails to correctly answer the riddle that Desmond poses to him. This failure prompts Desmond to round up the two. Desmond orders Kate to tie Locke up, but Locke convinces Desmond she should be tied up. When Desmond concurs, Locke slides her one of his knives, and locks her in a dark room. Kate frees herself, and turns on a light, amazed to find herself in a large pantry filled with foodstuffs, all in boxes bearing a strange marking. After enjoying a chocolate bar, she climbs into a ventilation shaft, while Locke and Desmond take turns asking each other questions.

The plotline converges to the same point at the end of the last episode, Man of Science, Man of Faith. An alarm klaxon begins to sound. Desmond walks Locke at gunpoint to the computer terminal, and forces him to enter "the numbers" into the computer, which resets a timer for the alarm. Soon after, Desmond detects Jack, and after channeling him to the computer room, forces Locke to greet Jack as seen in the previous episode (though this time, we see Kate's perspective too, overhead in the ventilation shaft).