While in the middle of a conversation with several other castaways, Desmond, without warning, sprints toward and dives into the ocean. No one on the beach understands why, until they see that Claire is drowning in the ocean but Desmond saves her. Noting this event, as well as events that have happened previously in the season – such as Desmond knowing about a speech Locke would make before he would make it, as well as Desmond inserting a rod on a tent just hours before that rod was struck by lightning – Hurley concludes that Desmond has
precognition, but Charlie is skeptical. They hatch a plan to get Desmond to get drunk and confess. After several drinks, Charlie asks Desmond about his future-seeing abilities. Instead of answering, Desmond gets up to leave, but after Charlie calls him a "coward", a drunken Desmond tackles and chokes Charlie, shouting that Charlie does not know what he has been through. A flashback scene shows the hatch about to implode following the failure to enter the numbers in "
Live Together, Die Alone". After Desmond twists the key, he suddenly wakes up in 1996 in a
London apartment with his girlfriend
Penelope Widmore (
Sonya Walger), and he is shown to have vague memories of his time on the island. Desmond is clearly puzzled, but is relieved to finally be with Penny again. Desmond later goes to Penny's billionaire father,
Charles Widmore (
Alan Dale) and asks for his permission to marry his daughter. Widmore rejects Desmond, who is crushed and humiliated. Walking out of the building, Desmond sees Charlie singing and playing his guitar for money on the sidewalk. Desmond asks him if he remembers him but Charlie does not. Frustrated, Desmond rants about his time on the island and predicts it will rain, which it suddenly does. At a pub, Desmond meets with his friend, a physicist, and after retelling the events on the island asks him if time travel is possible, but the physicist denies it. Hearing familiar music, Desmond predicts for several events to happen in this pub tonight, namely the outcome of a
football game being broadcast on TV as well as a thug about to attack the bartender, but neither event happens. Later, while shopping for a ring for Penny, Desmond runs into the shopkeeper,
Eloise Hawking (
Fionnula Flanagan). She tells Desmond his future. Hawking takes Desmond on a walk, and Hawking notes a particular man, with red shoes, just before he is crushed to death by a falling scaffolding. She explains that although she knew the man would die, she did not help because the universe has a way of "course correcting", and he would die anyway; if she warned him of the scaffolding, he would be hit by a taxi the next day, if she warned him of that he'd break his neck in a shower accident the next. Desmond and Penny go on a walk together and take a picture, where he breaks up with her after realizing that he does not have enough money to support her. He returns to the pub, and the predictions he made the previous night turn out to be true – this shows that Desmond
does have precognition, his timing was just off. Desmond warns the bartender of the thug attacking him, and he ducks, but the thug's bat hits Desmond and he is knocked out. He wakes up back on the Island naked, as seen in "
Further Instructions". The flashback ends, and Desmond is pulled off Charlie by Hurley. They help Desmond to his tent. Charlie tries to get an answer from him one last time. Desmond reveals that both times he rescued Claire, he was really saving Charlie; Charlie would have been electrocuted if Desmond hadn't inserted the rod, and Charlie would have drowned attempting to save Claire from the ocean had Desmond not done so. Desmond tells Charlie that although he has prevented his death twice, Charlie is destined to die (this is in reference to Hawking's comments on "course correction"). ==Production==