Charles is subsequently visited by Ben, who claims that he will kill Penny, in retribution for Keamy killing Alex on the island. In 2007, John Locke, having left the island, is located by Charles, who explains that a war is coming for the island and that Locke must help him ensure that the "wrong side" doesn't win. He enlists the help of his associate Matthew Abaddon (Lance Reddick) to assist Locke in reuniting the "Oceanic Six", six survivors of Flight 815 who also left the island, to bring them back. During this time, Charles also has meetings with Sun-Hwa Kwon (Yunjin Kim), in which they both agree upon the necessity of murdering Ben Linus, and Desmond, who demands Eloise Hawking's address. Charles complies, and asks him to return to hiding and not get involved with the island, for Penny's sake. However, Desmond inadvertently leads Ben to Penny when he visits Eloise (Fionnula Flanagan). Desmond is shot by Ben, who is unable to kill Penny after noticing that she and Desmond have a child. Charles goes to the hospital where Desmond is being treated and speaks with Eloise, though he does not visit his daughter. He mentions sacrificing his son Daniel as well  After being exiled for 20 years, Widmore finally returns to the Island in a submarine when he gives orders to "proceed as planned" in spite of the group of people on the beach being spotted by said submarine. His team captures Sawyer and escorts him to his submarine, docked at the second island adjacent to the main one. Charles is seemingly surprised when Sawyer tells him that Locke sent him to this second island – he says Locke is dead, which Sawyer confirms. Sawyer then proposes that he return to the other Island, lie to "Locke" that the coast is clear, bring him back to this island, and walk him into Charles' trap. Charles agrees. Charles then gets his crew to abduct Jin from Locke's camp in order to insure that he had leverage over The Man in Black so he couldn't leave the Island. It is then revealed that Widmore brought Desmond back to the Island in order to do a specific task. He puts him in a crate that expels vast amounts of electromagnetic energy, and Desmond wakes up in the alternate timeline. When Desmond returns, he tells Widmore he knows exactly what he has to do. Widmore is later confronted by the Man in Black, who gives him a choice: either he tell the Man in Black why he returned to the island, or the Man in Black would hunt down and kill Penny upon returning to the mainland.