Her heart almost stills when she sees him out there. Chris. Or, possibly, just some person who looks like Chris, give that the island does have a habit of making clones of people in the most unsettling of ways. Maybe it brought her Chris Miles on the island just for this, to drop her back in New York and somehow have her lose all concentration when someone with that same face, that same confused and at once wondrous look in his expression. And if that's true, then the last thing that Claire should be doing is running after him the way she does now. She should just be letting him stay among the civilians, not making it clear that she's connected to him at all, because that puts him at risk. But, Claire reminds herself, that she's coming to New York today with memories of the next twenty-four hours intact, that's a game changer.

And the last thing she can ever let herself do is get Chris tangled up in all of that.

It's only when she's merely a couple of yards away from Chris that she realizes. He doesn't know. He doesn't know what she is, what she can do, and seeing that might drive him away more quickly than anything else. She can't be fully sure, and that thought is enough to make her want to run in the other direction entirely. She can't afford to lose him.

"Chris?" she calls out anyway, dread in her voice.