Author's note: The story up to chapter 6 has been revised! I've made the writing a bit better, fixed careless errors, and gotten rid of a few things, like the abrupt romance between Aidan and Sheridan. All I meant by that was to show that Charlotte had some sort of intuition about them being soul mates... but we'll get to that later. Until then, enjoy!

Charlotte Lawson’s previously drooping eyelids opened wide at the sound of an automatic sliding door. Her copious ebony ringlets bounced as she entered lethargically. They framed a thin and otherwise normal-toned beige face, although the contrast between the two extremes made her face seem pallid and her hair an even deeper black. Her dark green eyes sparkled with intelligence, and the fact that they were angular instead of rounded merely accented her cunning, though at the moment she didn’t look capable of thought other than of sleep. She had arrived at the airport and the fact that it was four thirty in the morning was no longer the only thing occupying her mind; now she also thought that it had been stupid to agree to go in the first place. The memory of how warm and comfortable her bed had felt that morning mocked her cruelly as she stubbed her toe on a passing suitcase.

“Char!” shouted Rachel Bowing from the opposite side of the large, crowded, oppressive airport. She was standing in the check-in line. “You came!” Charlotte grudgingly picked up her bags and forced herself to join Rachel in line. It wasn’t that she didn’t like her; Rachel just wasn’t the most interesting of people. But for a not-so-interesting person, she sure talked a lot.

“Hi, Rachel,” Charlotte yawned.

“I am so glad you came! I was worried that you wouldn’t, but now I realize that was silly of me. Of course you would come! And now you’re here! I was worried I’d have to hang with Aidan the whole trip.” Charlotte joined Rachel’s profuse giggling with a weak laugh. Aidan had showed, then. Aidan Hunt was the son of the ultra-rich C.O. of Hunt Inc. Charlotte wasn’t exactly sure what Hunt Inc. did, but believed it had something to do with preserving ancient artifacts. Charlotte, who loved to draw, had numerous depictions of Aidan’s face in her portfolio. It wasn’t that he was handsome; his face was broader than most, and he had light-brown, almond shaped eyes, unusual for a male of Caucasian descent. It was more the manner that he held himself, reserved and quiet, speaking only when spoken to, but always pensive, always looking on the edge of something important, something that you wouldn’t want to get in the way of by talking to him. Perhaps that’s why Rachel talked to Charlotte more; although Charlotte spoke nearly the same amount as Aidan, she just looked more approachable.

“Huh. Is Aidan the only one here?”

“Oh, no! There’s a whole group of us coming, they’re just running a bit late.” Charlotte let out a sigh of relief. She wouldn’t have to spend the entire trip with a constant stream of words in one year, and utter silence in the other. Not that she particularly enjoyed the company of the other students, either. As much as she put Aidan down for being different, Charlotte thought herself the queen of peculiarity. Although she was in her senior year, she never went to dances or parties. She had never felt the need to be the center of attention, like other girls in her grade. She knew this self-induced seclusion was the reason she had little friends, and liked it that way. Really, this was what was strange about her, in her opinion. Charlotte enjoyed seclusion, or at least from these people. She was amazed a girl like Rachel Bowing (loud, gossiping, obnoxious at times) would want anything to do with her. But, Rachel had convinced her to pay the money to go on this trip to Italy with her, so Charlotte guessed that some part of her brain must enjoy her company. Either that, or she was completely insane, a possibility she couldn’t rule out.

After checking-in her bags and getting her boarding ticket, she followed Rachel to where the other students were gathering.

“I’m so excited!” gushed Rachel to her friend Sheila.

“I know! Me too!” she squealed in return. It appeared to Charlotte that they would begin holding hands and jumping up and down at any moment. Aidan, she saw out of the corner of her eye, was wearing one of his usual plain, black suits. The girls she was standing with noticed, too, apparently, by the way they were gossiping about it.

“Oh my God! Look at Aidan!” Rachel whispered, pointing openly.

“He’s still wearing that hideous suit?” Sheila asked, a sneer on her face.

“He’s such a snob. I heard that it’s Gucci or something,” said another of their friends, with her nose upturned.

“God, we know he has money! He doesn’t need to rub it in our faces,” a different girl said passionately, glad to have some input.

“Yeah. I mean, we’re pretty rich too, but I mean, we don’t wear Gucci,” Rachel said charitably. Charlotte snorted at their Abercrombie and Fitch ensembles, crossed her arms, and leaned against the padded wall. Was this so that people wouldn’t hurt themselves when they knocked their heads against the wall in frustration? she wondered.

“Why do you look so glum, Char? We’re going to Italy!” Charlotte smiled and they were satisfied, not caring enough to see that it was forced. Aidan, she noticed, was looking at her curiously. She blushed and looked determinedly straight ahead, but he looked away quickly. She saw that he only brought two black suitcases, one large and one small, when she braved a glance over to where he was standing a good five feet away from the others. The compact one presumably contained a laptop. She rolled her eyes once again when she saw the large pile of multi-colored suitcases that was Rachel and her friends’ luggage, not including their carry-ons. Yes, they were very conservative about their money. She shook her head, and tried to pay attention to the gaggle of girls.

“So, then I said…” Rachel was chattering. Oh, Charlotte thought, never mind. She peered at the girls’ faces, trying to figure out what made them so much different from herself. Rachel was artificially blonde, with large blue eyes and tan skin. The other girls looked very much the same, other than small feature differences. Fairly boring to sketch, rather generic, she found. Charlotte fingered an ebony curl and considered it. She ran a hand through a ringlet to see the effect, but it merely bounced back tightly again. She sighed. Their teacher, Ms. Nelsen, arrived a few minutes later. The plump, easily-winded woman immediately read off a list of names and found everyone was there.

“Does everyone have their passports?” she asked. Charlotte groped around in her jeans pocket and produced the little black booklet. Ms. Nelsen checked that everyone’s bags were checked-in and that they had their boarding passes, and then the group was off. As they were sitting in the black leather seats of gate 16B, it struck Charlotte as odd that they were flying across the Atlantic Ocean just to see one measly city. Sure it was exciting; they were going to see Pompeii! But it did seem rather ridiculous.

After they had waited a little over twenty minutes, the plane to Rome began boarding. The back of the plane boarded first, so Charlotte sat back down, being one of the few that had first class tickets. She accidentally missed her seat, sat on the armrest between her chair and another, and flopped onto the floor. She hurriedly scrambled back up, her face bright red. Aidan, she saw, was looking at her and chuckling. She turned a deeper shade of red and looked resolutely at her folded hands. The terminal was nearly empty, so she got up and got in line, holding her passport and boarding pass in her hand.

“That was a nasty fall, are you okay?” asked the woman manning the tickets. Charlotte blushed again, and nodded. There was a snort of laughter from behind her, and she turned, only to see Aidan staring outside at something very interesting, by the way he was concentrating on it. She rolled her eyes, grabbed her ticket back from the woman, and stepped forward.

8C…8C…she chanted in her head, trying to locate her seat. It shouldn’t be this hard, she thought, I’m in the front of the plane! Finally she found it, a window seat. She groaned as she stowed her backpack overhead. She hated airplanes.

“Hello,” said a quiet, deep, rather tentative voice. Charlotte looked up.

“Hello, Aidan,” she replied in a voice she hoped was clear of sarcasm as he sat down next to her. Could she ask to change seats? No, that would be too rude. She’d just have to suffer through it. Looking on the bright side, she compared sitting next to Aidan with sitting next to Rachel for ten hours, and her mood lifted considerably.

“Are you excited?” he asked in the same quiet voice. She almost had to strain to hear.

“Not really,” she admitted.

“Why?” He sounded surprised.

“I’ve already been to Rome,” she explained. “Never to Pompeii, so that should be interesting, but that’s only a day’s tour.” Aidan nodded.

“I’ve already been to both Rome and Pompeii,” he said. Charlotte wasn’t sure if she’d ever heard him say so much at one sitting.

“Then why are you going with us?”

“Better than at home.”

She smiled grimly. It was the same for her. Gary Lawson, Charlotte’s father, gave her everything she wanted, except for his presence. She couldn’t really blame him, he had a big job as a corporate executive, but she couldn’t help but think that he’d been around a lot more when her mother had been there.

A pair of stewardesses stood in the front of the plane with life vests around their neck. Charlotte knew what was coming, and quickly zoned out. She didn’t want to get freaked out before the plane even took off. It was irrational, she knew, this fear she had of airplanes. Not heights, exactly, just the knowledge that the only thing keeping her from death was a hunk of aluminum with wings. As the plane began moving, she clutched the sides of her seat until her knuckles were white.

“Are you all right?” Aidan wanted to know, sounding concerned. She took a deep breath and nodded. “Are you afraid of flying?” he asked incredulously. She glared at him and shook her head, but he gave her a knowing look. “It was brave of you to come. We’ll be flying for hours over ice-cold ocean without anywhere to land if there’s an emergency.”

‘That’s very helpful!” she snapped without meaning to, and blushed. He smiled, only one corner of his mouth pulling up.

“Sorry,” he said, a twinkle in his eye telling her he didn’t mean it. Charlotte just stared at the seat ahead of her.

Charlotte looked broodingly out the window, thinking about how very long those fourteen hours to Rome would be. And then what would she do? Aidan was a good option compared with spending her time with Rachel and her friends, and if this alternative was already not working out, who would she talk with for the rest of the trip? No one? She supposed she could pull that off, but it wasn’t a happy prospect. The plane took off rather unexpectedly in her case, as she wasn’t listening to any announcements made by the pilot. She quickly closed her eyes and went back to gripping the sides of her chair, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth. It was just a precaution; she didn’t really think she would lose it this time. Once they were safely up in the air, Charlotte opened her eyes and breathed normally.

“That was fun,” Aidan commented. Charlotte smiled embarrassedly. A stewardess came by asking what they’d like to drink. She ordered a coke with lots of ice, he a sprite, no ice.

“No ice? How can you stand warm soda?” she asked in dubious amazement. He shrugged, sipping contentedly. Charlotte crunched her ice rather noisily, trying to prove a point, although exactly what that was remained unclear to her. Aidan gave her a curious glance.

“How’s the family life?” he asked, hushed as ever. It was like he was forming words as he breathed. She gagged on her ice, nearly spitting it out on her lap.

“You promised,” she warned. She felt herself blushing to her hairline, and turned towards the window. Bad idea; she felt a swooping feeling in her stomach when she saw the green ground below. She quickly shut the shade.

“I haven’t told anyone, and I won’t,” he replied, suddenly serious. “I keep my promises. I was just wondering; has she visited again?”

“No. Not since you were there.” Charlotte felt anxious, afraid of what he would say. She was completely at his disposal as to whether she would lose control or not.

“Hmm. I don’t quite understand why she left in the first place,” he said. She checked the seat behind her for hidden Rachel-clones before speaking.

“Why are you bringing this up now?” she hissed.

“Well, you can’t reasonably get away from me on an airplane, no one can hear us, and I’m curious,” he answered, a mischievous smile on his lips. She glowered at him and turned away, but spoke.

“My dad worked a lot, and she thought that he loved his work more than her,” she explained through gritted teeth.

“But why didn’t she take you with her?”

Anger bubbled in Charlotte’s throat, and she took a deep breath before answering. “I was fifteen years old, and my dad had the money. I’m sure she thought it was the right thing to do.”

“But if your father didn’t pay enough attention to her, why would she leave her daughter—”

“I don’t know, now will you shut up?” she snapped, staring at the plastic cover over the window. Buried and repressed hate and guilt surfaced, bringing tears to her eyes.

“I’m sorry…” Aidan offered, meaning it this time. “I only wanted to understand.” Charlotte sniffed and nodded, and they both fell into silence. She knew it had to happen at some point. She frowned, trying not to think, and got out the new Dan Brown she’d brought for the trip. She sighed as she turned to the first page and dove into the life of another in order to escape her own.