Disclaimer: I don't own Lost, or any of its characters. If I did, I'd be off writing episodes, not fanfiction.

AN: This story is set after the events of 4x10, and was written because there are far too many fics out there that ship Charlotte with Daniel. I myself love Daniel but can't stand Charlotte, so I decided to do something a little different. Enjoy.

HOW DO I LOATHE YOU?: A LOST ANTI-CHARLOTTE FANFICTION

If you're a Charladayer and therefore upset by this, by all means write your congressman.

Chapter One: Redheaded Hausfrau

'See, Dan, I told you. They're convinced we're trying to kill them. Might as well keep playing the part.'

'Dammit, Charlotte... That right there, that right... Your, your attitude, your very bad attitude, is exactly why they don't trust us.'

What he'd really wanted to say - what he'd wanted to scream at her - was something more along the lines of, 'Dammit, Charlotte, why the hell can't you just shut up? All you're doing is making them hate us more!' But Daniel Faraday was far too polite to ever be able to tell her that. He was also a little scared of her and didn't want her to pistol-whip him in the head or anything like that. He wouldn't put it past her; she had the eyes of a mad woman and a temperament to match. All the poor physicist could do was attempt to keep the peace between the two of them and the survivors, whilst simultaneously undertaking the very difficult task of not pissing Charlotte off. This was making his normally elastic patience twang.

It was the morning after they'd trekked out into the jungle with Sun and Jin to find surgical equipment. Daniel was sitting next to his comrade, who was lightly snoring, flipping absently through his diary and trying to think of an out, some way he could tell the redhead that he didn't like her and didn't appreciate her constantly following him around and ruining his already shaky relations with the Oceanic survivors. If he wanted to be blunt, just come right out and say it, he'd most likely need to wear some sort of protective headgear - and something for his more delicate area as well. That plan had its flaws, since just about all there was to work with in the way of armour-making was palm leaves and coconuts, which wasn't reassuring in the least.

Charlotte Staples Lewis, Daniel had learned by now, was a very aggressive and controlling person when she wanted to be; he wondered on occasion whether she grew up with five brothers, to turn out like that. Now that she'd latched on to him - now that she liked him - it was going to be extremely hard to shake her off. All of the plans he went through in his mind were doomed to failure, so he'd have to come up with something really big, something that'd stick.

He chalked it up to lack of sleep when he briefly considered rejecting Charlotte through song.

Reasoning that a little rest would help him plan better, Faraday put his diary back into his pack and nestled into his blanket, keeping as far from Charlotte as their tiny shelter would allow, so as to not wake up spooning with her like a character out of one of those unsavoury teen dramas.

But sleeping anywhere in Charlotte's vicinity, it turned out, was a bad idea indeed. When the pink haze that was somewhere between unconsciousness and awareness cleared, Daniel blinked his eyes open, squinting against the bright sunset which was shining straight into his eyes.

'Good afternoon, Sleeping Beauty,' said Charlotte's voice sarcastically, from somewhere within the blazing wall of sunlight. 'God, Dan, do you know how long you've been asleep?'

Aw, crap, thought Daniel, ignoring the unenthusiastic protests from the part of his brain that didn't like him to swear. She's got that tone of voice again. This must be what a bad marriage is like.

'Come on, up-up!' she ordered, standing over him and kicking his foot lightly until he staggered into an upright position. 'There's some kind of a fuss over at the doctor's tent; apparently he's gone AWOL. Let's go.' Without even waiting for Daniel's consent, the redheaded hausfrau grabbed him by his thin wrist, towing him over to Jack's tent, where a small group was gathered around a seething Juliet and a confused Kate.

'What's happened?' asked Charlotte imperiously when they reached the scene of the disturbance. She strode through the crowd, directly toward the other two women, while the reluctant physicist hang back at the edge of the throng.

Juliet ran her hands roughly through her hair, showing every sign of I-can't-deal-with-this-crap-itis. 'Jack's gone,' she replied, looking around at the treeline in a futile effort to find the missing doctor. 'He left his tent and wandered off somewhere, and I don't know where he is. He'll end up tearing his stitches because he's such a damn glutton for punishment!'

'Well, I told you to put a guard on his tent,' Kate accused. 'You should know what Jack's like by now.'

'I can't believe you're blaming me!' exclaimed the blonde woman. 'If you were so worried, you should have been watching him!'

While the assembled survivors were watching a catfight ensue, Charlotte stalked back to where Daniel was standing and tried to maneuver him away.

'Come on, Dan, this hasn't got anything to do with us,' she urged. 'Let's go and do something else.'

But Faraday just continued listening to the argument, gently tugging his arm from her grasp. 'I think we should help,' he said quietly. 'Jack could really be hurt, Charlotte. I think we should help them.'

'Dan - ' came the redhead's objection. It was ignored. Daniel was already wandering timidly over to Kate and Juliet, trying to stay out of their way in case they decided to engage in fisticuffs.

At this point, Kate was accusing the ex-Other of 'falling into Jack's arms the second I was gone', and Juliet was retaliating with 'well, I can't help it if he got sick of you jumping into bed with James all the time'. Then there was a skilfully executed slap-in-the-face-and-storm-off from the brunette, which left Juliet in the centre of a rapidly evaporating ring of spectators, clutching at her now-red cheek and glaring daggers at the retreating figure of Kate. Faraday took this as his opportune moment.

'Uh, excuse me...Juliet?'

'What?' she snapped, whipping her head round and directing her glare at him. She relented when she saw the look of frozen horror on his face. 'What is it?'

'Well, uh, Charlotte and I' - his fellow freightie sniffed disapprovingly at her inclusion - 'were thinking...maybe we could help you look for Jack?' Daniel attempted a friendly smile, but after having Juilet look at him like she was going to rip his head off and pull his spinal cord out through his neck, his heart just wasn't in it.

'You know what? Sure,' she told them gratefully. 'Since I can't depend on Kate's help any more. Thanks, you two.' She beamed at them, a definite improvement on her expression of murderous rage. 'You'd really be doing me a huge favour.'

Faraday chose to blank out the frustrated noise Charlotte made the second Juliet walked off to enlist some more members for her own personal Coast Guard. He couldn't understand her reluctance to help others, nor her 'our people and their people' attitude toward the survivors; to Daniel they were all people, so they might as well stick together. The lack of concern his boatmate showed for everyone except herself and him provided yet another reason to 'break up' with her. It wasn't in Daniel's nature to be uncaring, but it was certainly in Charlotte's.

'We should probably set off,' he suggested meekly, trying to stem her bad temper. 'He just had surgery, after all, so he couldn't have gone very far.'

'Hmph,' said Charlotte, folding her arms and striding off to the treeline. Daniel had to jog to keep up.

To be continued...

And there you have it. Chapter two has already been written, so expect to see it sometime tomorrow. I haven't started work on three yet, though, and reviews are the delicious cookies that fuel my creative process, hint hint. See you next time.