Complete Episode Guide:Episode 6x14, The Candidate Guide
Audio Recap:The Candidate Audio
Flash-sideways in italics.
Locke is in a hospital bed. As he comes to, Jack is standing over him saying, "Mr. Locke? Mr. Locke can you hear me?"

Locke looks at him.

"Welcome back," Jack says.

"I know you."

"We were on the same flight back from Sydney. I met you in the baggage office. You had lost your knives. I'm Jack Shephard."

"What happened?" Locke asks.

"You were run down by a car. You just came out of surgery." Jack checks Locke's eyes.

"Am I alright?"

"Your dural sac ruptured, but I think I got everything back where it belongs. Mr. Locke, while I was operating I got a look at the initial injury to your spine, the one that put you in a wheelchair, and I was hoping you'd tell me how that happened."

"Why?"

"Because I think you're a candidate."

"A candidate for what?"

"A new procedure, a surgery we're developing. And if it works it may restore feeling in your legs, in fact, you might even walk again. If you'll give me a shot, Mr. Locke, I think that I could fix you."

"No, thank you."

Jack looks confused. "Well, there's minimal risk and the benefit--"

"I said no, doctor."

Helen comes in. "John? Oh John, this is the first they'd let me see you." She kisses him. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

She looks at Jack. "Are you the doctor?"

"I am. Doctor Shephard."

She says thank you and goes to Jack and hugs him and kisses him on the cheek.

"Thank you for saving him."

No Paddling
Jack sits up. He's in an outrigger on the beach. Sayid is sitting on the sand and says, "Welcome to Hydra Island."

Jack looks around.

"At least you didn't have to paddle," Sayid says.

The Cages
Widmore's men take Hurley, Sun, Jin, Frank, Claire, Sawyer, and Kate to the cages, just inside the pylons. Seamus pushes a gun into Sawyer's back and says, "Get in."

"Uh uh," Sawyer says, "there ain't no way I'm getting back in those cages."

"Well I've got the gun, so you--"

Sawyer flips around and takes the gun and points it at Seamus. "Not anymore, Doughboy."

A shot is fired and everyone looks in the direction it came from. Widmore is holding a gun in the air and says, "Drop the gun." He points it at Kate. "Put the gun down or I'll kill her."

Sawyer says, "You ain't going to kill anybody, otherwise you wouldn't be throwing us in a cage."

"I have a list of names," Widmore says. "Ford, you're on it, as are Reyes, and the Kwons. Kate Austen, she's not. It doesn't matter to me whether she lives or dies."

Kate says, "Don't listen to him."

Sawyer looks at Kate and then hands his gun to Seamus, who hits him with it. They go into the cage. Widmore walks over and says, "You may not believe it, but I'm doing this for your own good."

"You're right," Sawyer says, "I don't believe it."

Widmore turns to one of his men and asks if the fence is live. The man says it will take about an hour. "We haven't got an hour," Widmore says. "Tell them to work faster. He's coming."

Bernard
Bernard works on a mold of teeth with a drill. Jack walks in, but Bernard doesn't hear him. "Hello?" Jack says.

Bernard stops and turns off the drill.

"I'm sorry," Jack says, "there was no one out front and I heard the drill. Do you know where I can find Dr. Nadler?"

"Well, you can find him right here, and if you're not a patient, you can call me Bernard." He stands to shake Jack's hand.

"Hi, I'm Jack Shephard. Um, I'm a surgeon over at St. Sebastians and I was hoping to get a look at one of your patient files."

"And which patient would that be?"

"His name is John Locke and our records said that you had done some emergency oral surgery on him about three years back."

"And what are you looking for exactly?"

"I want to know how he was hurt."

"Do you mind if I ask you why you're so interested in Mr. Locke, Jack?"

"Um. He and I met about a week ago. We were both on a flight back from Australia."

"Oceanic 815. I sat across the aisle from you. If memory serves, you were flirting with my wife Rose while I was in the bathroom. Pretty weird, huh?"

"Yeah," Jack says.

"Well, maybe you're on to something here," Bernard says and goes and gets a notepad. "Now I can't break patient confidentiality and tell you something I shouldn't, but I can tell you, when I treated Mr. Locke, there was another man in the accident with him." Bernard writes on a pad.

"That was three years ago, you just remember that?"

"Of course I do, Jack." He hands Jack the paper. It says Anthony Cooper. Bernard says, "Good luck, Jack. I hope you find what you're looking for."

Rescue Jack's Friends
In the outrigger on the beach, Jack asks Sayid what happened.

"There was a mortar attack. Widmore's people fired on us. Locke saved you." He hands Jack a canteen and Jack drinks.

"What about the rest of your group?" Jack asks. "What happened to them?"

"The ones who weren't killed scattered into the jungle. It's just the three of us now."

"Why did he bring me here?" Jack asks.

"Because," Man in Locke yells from the tree line, "your friends got themselves captured and now, we're going to have to rescue them." He walks over to Jack and Sayid.

"Rescue them from what?" Jack asks.

"Widmore has them in a cage about a half a mile inland."

"Why would he--"

"You know, I would ask him, but I don't think he's going to give me a straight answer. But I can't imagine that his intentions are good." Man in Locke pulls a gun out of the outrigger. "If we go right now, we can break your people out, run for the plane, and be off this island before Widmore knows what hit him."

"They're not my people and I'm not leaving the island."

"Well, Jack, I'm hoping you still change your mind about that, but your friends do want to leave, and since they just ran away from me on my own boat, I'm going to need your help convincing them they can trust me."

"Why should I trust you?"

"Because I could kill you, Jack, right here, right now. And I could kill every single one of your friends and there's not a thing that you could do to stop me. But instead of killing you, I saved your life and now I want to save them too. So will you help me?