Disclaimer: Alright, you guys caught me. I own Lost! I was keeping it a secret the whole time. I don't know how you sneaking kids found out, but you did! Way to go! (dies a little bit inside from lying).

Thanks for the reviews: I love you!

A/N: Sorry it's taken longer than usual to get a new chapter up. I've been crazy-busy with schoolwork and whatnot (I wrote a play for English class that some actors came over and acted!), and I haven't had much alone time to write this. But, alas, I wrote with every opportunity that came and here is the end result. Another chapter of "The Pilgrimage"! Enjoy!

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"Well hell, baby, why you gotta go and run off like that?"

Frightened, paralyzed, and near soiling himself, Charlie closed his eyes as the cold tip of the gun pushed itself deeper into his skin. Millions of dazed and confused thoughts raced through his buzzing head, the first concerning just who that sexy yet frightening voice belonged to, and why-oh-why they were digging a pistol into his tender skin

He opened his parched mouth and responded in a gritty rasp, "Who are you?"

The first thing he felt was a hand spreading out slowly on his crotch- the second was the deep swoop of confusion and arousal at the pit of his stomach.

"My name is Bette, sweety-cakes." Her grip on him strengthened, and Charlie was hit with a bolt of dizziness that was overwhelming yet oddly bittersweet as he could feel her soft breaths warming his pallid cheeks, her hand groping at the Pleasure Center which was, at the moment, perked in attention. "Now that we got that all figured out, what I wanna know is who you are."

Right now I'm a very horny man, he thought as he felt his knees going wobbly underneath him- the feeling of complete rubber-ness returning in full force.

The last thing he felt was total weightlessness and strong arms wrapped around him.

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"I say we spread out. The more ground we cover, the faster we'll find him." Jack furiously scratched at his sharp and annoyingly itchy stubble as he surveyed the rabid jungle with Locke and Claire by his side. At the moment he felt in control- actually in charge for once. Locke hadn't spoken too much since they had left camp earlier that day (which Jack found terribly wonderful), and Claire, of course, was as stone-faced as could be. He found the whole idea for this search someone strange, considering who presented it, but he decided not to venture into the relationship, however strange and twisted it may be, that existed between Claire and Charlie.

He could still remember the baby incident like it was yesterday. He could remember the fury in Claire's eyes when she slapped him in front of the wild morning tide. He could remember the tears welling up in Charlie's eyes as he sewed shut the wound on his purple cheek that Locke had bore him. Come to think of it, their coming on this pilgrimage was very peculiar indeed.

"No, Jack, I don't think so." Locke's stern yet melodically gentle voice drew him out of this memory. "If we split up we're more vulnerable. Also, if one of us does find Charlie, we might need more than one pair of hands to get him back to camp." Jack could only imagine what that was hinting at, and he noticed Claire did too as a subtle wave of darkness flashed on her doll-like face.

"That's why I brought these." With quick, eager hands Jack drew out three guns-two shotguns and one small and delicate pistol. "They're all Sawyer would allow me," he said numbly as he handed Locke one of the shotguns and Claire the silver pistol.

"Um, Jack," Claire's gentle voice was hard to hear in the ruckus of the jungle and the noise of the guns being distributed, but it was heard nonetheless. Her voice was wavering...almost frightened. "I really don't think we should split up."

The troubled look in her ocean eyes shook Jack as he slung the gun around his back. "But the guns...we can shoot if one of us spots him." Her arms were trembling slightly as he placed his rough hands on them. "Believe me, Claire...we'll find him much quicker if we split up."

"Jack, I agree with Claire. I don't think it's wise-"

The leader in Jack (as well as the fussy little boy in Jack) flared up inside of him as he huffed at them. "Well, I imagine you guys want to find him, right?"

What Jack couldn't imagine was how terrible Claire was feeling at that very moment. The very nanosecond that Jack suggested splitting up, that Voice of Reason screamed a brain-shattering scream of 'Nooo!' that sent shockwaves of fear down her spine. They could not split up- of this she was sure. "Of course I want to find him, Jack," she responded darkly. "I just...I think if the...Others are involved in whatever's happened to Charlie, we should definitely stay together."

Jack reasoned, put on a sour face, and nodded, fingering the leather strap that held the gun in place. "Fine, Claire. But I'm telling you now; the longer it takes us to find him, the quicker he's lost forever."

Lost forever. It repeated in her brain over and over. Lost forever, lost forever, lost forever...

What if he was?

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They hiked without a word until the sun started to go down, and rested in a clear thicket next to the dusty rubble that had once been the cave. Claire fell asleep the moment her head came into contact with the coolness of the jungle undergrowth.

She dreamed that she was a bubble, floating in the front lawn of her parent's home in Australia. She had been floating in the cool summer air, bathing in the warm glow of the sun, looking down at her family who had gathered for Labor Day, all dressed in white little frills and dresses and nonsense like that. As a child she had always waited and waited for the next family get-together, because that meant hot dogs, as well as candy from her Aunt Mildred. Also, she remembered with growing embarrassment, she would get to see her hot older cousin Matt (he was adopted!) take a dip in her backyard pool, the water making his firm, muscle-laden body slick in the sunlight.

In her descent from the sky, she looked down towards her rickety little porch where her Grandfather Bill used to sit all day in his oak rocking chair (gathering momentum from his arms because he had lost both legs in the War), rocking endlessly in the summer sun, telling her about whatever war he could whenever she would listen (which wasn't too often). Except Grandfather Bill was gone- he had died when Claire was ten, and she regretted not listening to him more ever since- but there was someone in his place, with Grandpa Bill's flannel shirts and wrapped loosely around them, their amputated legs propped up on the little stool he used. They even wore her Grandfather's cunning grin on their much younger face.

Needless to say, she wasn't surprised that it was Charlie, considering her dreams had only been about him for quite sometime now. But when those clouded blue-gray eyes lost in twisters of confusion and pain and fear locked with hers, she felt her round, wet bubble-body quivering, and then...

She popped.

When Claire awoke she felt very odd, as though she were being watched, and she was sure she heard a faint tousling of leaves as she looked around at the vast green of the jungle...the sounds of someone fleeing. But alas, the hour was late, and as cliche as it sounded, it was probably just the wind. She lay her blonde head down, suspicion almost completely gone, and closed her eyes once more, half of her praying for a dream and half of her dreading one. There was unmistakably a joy of seeing Charlie's face, but this joy was usually doused when it was either covered in blood or the shadows of rapidly approaching death.

The rest of her sleep was not disturbed by a single dream, and as the faint, steady breaths of her slumber reached Freddy's ears, his quaking heart was assured that he was neither heard nor spotted by this lovely woman, nor her company.

He smiled a child's smile as he imagined Zeke's joy when he would tell him of this wonderful news. In his haze of joy he found himself, oddly enough, tired, and he made camp behind the big gray rock next to the old cave.

The man-boy dreamed of sugarplum fairies and the great, big reward Zeke would give him when he got back. He assumed, rightfully so, that Zeke had no idea that these three castaways were searching for the strange man that they had stowed away miles from their current resting spot...was him name Charlie? All he was sure of was that it started with a C.And, whoever the C-man was, he was apparently important not only to the Boss but to these people as well, and if he got the heads up to Zeke in time, he was sure he would be greatly rewarded with something he couldn't even began to imagine.No doubt it would be priceless.

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"Wake up, baby, time to eat the turkey!"

Charlie wondered if he heard that right, then reasoned that, indeed he did, as he opened his eyes to the yellow-green burst that was the jungle when the sun was in it's highest place in the sky. He was a tad bit surprised to see the face of a beautiful young woman hovering over him, her radiant beauty outlined in the white light of the sun.

Wow...she was beautiful. Apparently, this was to whom the hauntingly sexy voice belonged to, and honestly, the face didn't match the voice. The voice had been scratchy, raw, and dripping in sexual suggestiveness. But the face was so innocently gorgeous and full of life. In fact, he could only think of one woman he had ever met in his entire life that was a beautiful as she, maybe even more. But she was miles away, probably spending whatever free time she could grasp hating every fiber of his being, which she had the right to.

He smiled at the woman; or at least he hoped it was a smile, for it felt forced and stretched on his weary face. In fact, everything about him felt weary...terrible to be more precise. Nausea was still settling into his system like a disease, and he guessed it was from the withdrawal that came with the heroine the bearded man gave him. And not to mention he was starving, literally at that. Which is why the smile felt more real than ever when she brought a large piece of some reddish meat into his field of vision.

"That's right, honeybuns, it's turkey time!"

He was shaken with a sudden bout of confusion as he heard the statement spill slowly and strangely out of his lips, accusatory and idiotic: "That can't be turkey." Of course it isn't you dolt, he thought immediately.

She laughed. "Of course it ain't! But, well, you can imagine it is, right? I kind of guessed turkey was your meat of choice." With firm hands she grabbed his shoulders and brought him to a sitting position on the log they were sharing, sitting placidly next to a running stream of wet, wonderful water.

Charlie almost cried at the sight of it. "Oh..." he said longingly as he swallowed hard in his dry, parched throat, licking his crackling lips.

She made the connection with a wide girlish grin. "You thirsty?"

With tears shining in his eyes, he turned to her and nodded. "Mhmm. Could you...help me please?" Slightly embarrassed, he tried to stand on the mossy ground and started wavering dangerously before the woman grabbed his arms and shook her head.

"No you don't, sugar, Bette's gonna get you some water. You just sit tight."

And with amazement he watched her jog over to the little stream of crystal clear water, bend down, cup some in her hands, and walk back to him with care shining in her eyes. She approached him and raised her cupped hands toward his mouth.

Charlie felt himself going red. "Wait, you don't have to-"

"Shhhhh," she said soothingly, the rawness of sexuality returning in her voice. "Let Bette give you some water." With tenderness she raised her hands to his crackling lips and tilted them forward, letting the cold water find it's way into his mouth. He finished it quickly as she wiped off the beads of water from the corners of his mouth.

As he drank it, he never took his eyes off of this mystery woman, whose name was apparently Bette. The question repeated over and over in his waking mind: Who is she? She could've been one of them for all he cared...but something in him wanted to know. So, as she retreated back to the stream to get him more water, he asked, for the second time that day.

"Who are you?"

Bette returned with a new handful of water and bent down before him smiling. "I already told ya, hon'. My name's-"

"Bette, yes, I know." He paused as the woman brought more of the chilling water to his lips. As he could feel it splashing away in his empty stomach, he was suddenly very tired of the water and very eager to have some of that turkey she mentioned first. And then maybe a little dash of heroine, if she had any on her. "I mean, are you from the flight?"

Her beautiful face contorted into a comical look of complete and utter confusion. "Flight? What flight?"

That forced and weary smile found it's way to his lips again as he reached for the meat she had left lying on the log. Yes, it was currently being nibbled on by a collection of insects, but he didn't care. Charlie was so hungry it could've been invested with eight different species of maggots; he would've chomped the bloody hell off of it, and maybe some of those maggots too, if they looked tasty. "Flight 815? You know...crashed, about forty people on it?" Strangely enough he found himself annoyed, as the look of confusion never left her face. "About say...fifty-something days ago? I'm pretty sure you couldn't have missed us." After he said this he took a big, merciless chomp! into the reddish boar meat, trying to hide his ravenous desires in front of this strange woman. It was delicious.

"Oh! Yes, ya'll. The Boss told me about you-"

The Boss...? A big wave of understanding crashed ruthlessly into him as he began to realize. She's one of them...

"He told me there was a group of people who had crash-landed on a plane trip. That must be you, darlin'." Her dark locks fell to the side as she cocked her head at him, intensity in her eyes. "That mean you evil?"

The smile came back. "Not that I know of. We all thought that you guys were the evil ones!"

He was alarmed at the way she didn't laugh. Or smile whatsoever. "Maybe we are." A look of sheer grimness overtook her gorgeous face and somehow, all at once, made it hideous. Bette was solemnly quiet.

"Bette...what do you mean?"

Frightened, almost bewildered, she shot her head in all directions and drew closer to Charlie, her hot ragged breaths blowing onto his skin. "I crashed here, too." She paused for a moment as confusion swept over his face, and he looked ready to interject. She hushed him before he could, bringing a finger to his mouth. "Not on 815 with you guys. I was really little when it happened, and I don't remember much before it. But the Boss took me in and made me one of their own. Killed my mother, though. But I don't remember her, anyway."

"Is that...true?" Now Charlie looked like a befuddled little child, as the boar meat stood in his hand, frozen, his lips parted wide in disbelief.

Suddenly, she became very frightened. "He's coming!" She whispered, grabbing his shoulders. "Oh, he scares me, Charlie."

"Who? Who scares you?" A cold chill spread over his spine as he could feel that indescribable feeling you get when you're being watched washing over his senses, making him frantic.

She didn't respond.

"Who?"

Suddenly, a very gruff yet familiar voice pierced the afternoon haze and shook Charlie to the bone. "Well, hello you two. I presume you're having fun?"

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Next time: Does Charlie believe Bette? What exactly does this mystery-man have in store for Charlie and, possibly, Bette? And what is going on with Freddy? Stay tuned for the next installment of "The Pilgrimage"!

A/N: Hello, my lovely readers! Hopefully you are enjoying the twists and turns of this story (believe me, I got more in store)! And also, if you haven't guessed, this isn't really following the storyline for the show whatsoever (there's some word for that, but I don't know it so blahh), but I hope you guys will just sit with me through the ride, however unbelievably crazy it may be. And no, I didn't forget to grovel (I would never!). Any reviews would be greatly appreciated, and also, this just in, if you review me you will all get chocolate. Chocolate! So review! (Counter Spark is not liable if any reviewer does not get chocolate, she just said it to get reviews and if anyone took her seriously they must either be A. stupid or B. very hungry)

-Counter Spark