AN: It's been awhile, hasn't it?

The First Meeting

Charlotte Lewis casually surveyed the people that were traveling to the Island with her. Most of them appeared to be guns for hire – trigger-happy lunatics. Not one of them caught her interest, and she instead decided to stay far away from them. She may be a complete bitch, but she knew the limits. These men didn't.

She noticed a few eyeing her appreciatively, and she scoffed. It was like they had never seen a woman before. She casually walked around the deck, keeping the lunatics in her line of vision just in case. She stiffened as she heard footsteps behind her and she shot a glare to the lunatics who were watching with amusement.

She knew what was going to happen, and she waited until the steps moved even closer. Without turning around, she reached out and grabbed a man's arm. She spun around and saw a hand reaching towards where her rear had just been. She twisted his arm until the man shouted out in pain.

"You insane bitch! Do you know who I am?!" the man roared while hissing, trying to disguise his pain while attempting to remove his arm from her grasp.

"Do you really think I care?" Charlotte fixed him with an icy glare. To emphasize her point, she twisted his arm a bit more and he buckled under the pain. "Now, if you speak to me again, or even look at me, there will be problems. Do you understand?" The man glared at her, attempting to look menacing.

She smirked and tightened her grasp a bit more. "I understand!" he shouted, giving up. Charlotte let his arm go before kneeing him in his groin. He collapsed to the deck like a rag doll, and Charlotte turned her gaze to the other lunatics.

"That goes for all of you. And because you were already warned, your treatment won't be as gentle as this man's was" Charlotte stared them down, and they cowered under her gaze. She waited a few moments before stalking off the deck, attempting to find a place that wasn't overrun with misogynistic pigs.

She unconsciously avoided going below deck, and instead found a corner of the ship that was only occupied by one other man. She stopped short before he could notice her. He didn't fit into the criteria of trigger-happy lunatic, but she couldn't figure out why he was on the ship. He must've been part of the science team, but he didn't look like much of a scientist. He just looked twitchy.

The man was muttering to himself, gesturing to no one while flipping through a notebook. He wore a tie, while Charlotte found amusing. That definitely wasn't the type of thing one would normally wear on a ship, or to an island. Without her realizing it, the man had turned and caught sight of her.

"I'm…did you want to be alone?" the man stuttered in a nervous voice. "I could go somewhere else"

"It's fine" Charlotte smiled to put the man at ease, but he still seemed nervous. She moved next to him and stared out at the blue ocean silently.

They stood in silence for a few minutes, before the man spoke once more. "I-I saw you down there, with the…" he trailed off, apparently searching for the right word to describe the men.

"Lunatics?" Charlotte finished his sentence with a bit of surprise that she was voicing her thoughts. He laughed awkwardly. "Is that why you're nervous? I don't do things like that unless someone deserves it"

"No. I'm just…I've been like this for years" he fingered the notebook subconsciously. "I don't want to go down there, because they'll…you know"

"They won't do anything to you" Charlotte said at once, looking at him directly for the first time. "I'll make sure of it"

"You don't need to do that on-on my account" he stuttered, rubbing the back of his neck.

"It's not a big deal. They just piss me off, and I'd take any opportunity to show them their place" Charlotte said simply.

The man gave her a warm smile, somehow seeing something behind her words that she didn't intend. "Thank you…um…what's your name?"

"Charlotte, Charlotte Lewis" Charlotte answered while extending her hand.

Daniel hesitated briefly before taking it. "Daniel Faraday"

Charlotte grasped it once before letting his hand go. "I'll see you around, Daniel"

Later in her room, Charlotte thought about Daniel. He definitely wasn't a lunatic, but he didn't scream scientist at her either. He definitely wasn't one to take charge, and he instead seemed content to just go where someone directed. A scientist was normally more of a risk taker than Daniel appeared to be. Still, he was sweet, in a lost puppy sort of way. But he definitely wasn't the type of person she would actively seek out.

Later on, she was surprised to find that after their first meeting, she unintentionally began to gravitate towards him. Even after this discovery, though, she made no effort to change her actions.