It was known that Kate likely wasn't pregnant when she was on the plane. Or at least, that she could have only been in the very early stages of pregnancy. Kate so far has only been on the island for 92 days, not anywhere near long enough to have a nine month pregnancy (which is really closer to 10, if you ask a doctor), have the baby, and have it grow to around 2 years old before a rescue takes them off the island.

So how many days in real time is equivalent to 92 days of island time? Does the rest of the world think they've been gone for four years? Someone on Losttalk recently speculated that 4 months of island time equals 4 years in real life. This is particularly interesting in light of the fact that Kate's mother tells Kate that doctors have been telling her for 4 years that she only has 6 months left to live. She was dying before Kate left and she stresses that she has been "dying" for four years. Aaron could be around 3 years old, add nearly a year of pregnancy for Kate (since everyone seems to think she's Aaron's biological mother) and that does add up to about 4 years. Maybe it really has been 4 years for the people in the real world. Wouldn't that be a trip??? I would need some serious therapy.

The time travel thing would be a really good reason to bribe the Losties to lie about their time on the island. All this time I thought it was because of all the deaths that happened on the island. That maybe Oceanic either felt responsible or worried they would be sued for deaths that happened on the island and wanted to let the Losties off without having to explain it to everyone.

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"Helen, do you remember that authentic Australian walkabout I told you about?"

I like this idea.
I think it is a really big clue that Kate's mom said the doctors have been telling her for the last 4 years that she only has 6 months to live.
Even with everything going on Kate's trial had to be one of the first things she had to do when she got back. So it's not like she has been off the island for four years at the time of the flash forward.

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Doctor playing golf. Woo, boy howdy, now I've heard everything. What's next, cop eating a donut?

Oops, I just realized that Cablerunner already posted about 85% of my theory below. I hadn't read his post yet. Props to Cablerunner. I dig your theory.

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"Helen, do you remember that authentic Australian walkabout I told you about?"

I have two thoughts that are not my original ideas, but I've read them somewhere:

1) Kate's mother said she had been dying for six months for the past 4 years. Someone did the math and came up with the number... wait for it....eight, one of "the numbers."

2) in the courtroom scenes - Kate's lawyer tells her that the "district attorney herself is going to prosecute this trial" - there are those who believe that the D.A. is Dharma. The O6 are not as free as we would think... Hurley is safely locked away in the mental institution; Kate (who had been free until the trial was then put in jail) as part of her plea deal, cannot leave the state. Dharma can now keep an eye on her. I think this will be an interesting idea to watch for in the upcoming episodes.

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What's the thread where CableRunner posted all this?

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I think there was something fishy with the DA, especially the stay put for 10 years thing.

I don't know. I can't find it anymore. If you search for all of Cablerunner's posts it will among the most recent. If that helps...which it probably doesn't.

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"Helen, do you remember that authentic Australian walkabout I told you about?"

I thought it was weird that Kate's lawyer wanted a better deal than the "stay put for 10 years" punishment. He was trying to interupt the prosecutor when she offered the deal to Kate (HEY, another deal in Eggtown, that's 3 that I can think of in the episode!), like he knew it w"asn't a good deal. Even though weighing "stay put for 20 years" instead of "20 years for each offense or possibly the death penalty"......why would any lawyer think he should/could get a better deal than that?

I want to see a flashback sometime of Kate kicking butt in prison after some tough girls go after her. I want her to have learned some moves since Juliet showed her what's what in the billiards room back when she was being held prisoner in Season 3. So far we've had Sawyer scenes in a prison and Desmond scenes in a prison, why not a female character?

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"Helen, do you remember that authentic Australian walkabout I told you about?"

ok but if 4 months on the island equal four years in the world, then does that mean Kate got pregnant, gestated her baby and delivered it all within the span of three weeks (island time?)

i've had two babies, and that sounds painful.

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I love my beautiful turnipheads...

It's not Kate's baby. It's Claire's baby. The world outside the island onlyl thinks it's Kate's baby. To them Kate has been gone long enough to have gone through a whole pregnancy, had the baby, and had it grow to around 3 or more years old. I was saying that because of the time delay off of the island, it would be totally believable to them that Aaron is Kate's baby, timewise. Especially if there is no Claire around to disagree. Since she's dead, Zed, Claire's dead.

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"Helen, do you remember that authentic Australian walkabout I told you about?"