Charlotte wasn't surprised by his reaction to saying she was engaged, it even made her laugh softly. Her family had played her engagement of as something that both parties were agreed to, that the pair were, in fact, in love, which was a complete lie. To say that she didn't want to marry him is a<i>huge</i>understatement. He was just as bad as her parents, and didn't even care about her. He was the man they were on their way to brunch with when their driver hit Ethan, as well. She understood where Ethan was coming from when he said she could just hide away, never show her face again, but it was more complicated than that.<br/><br/>"I could, but I don't want to just<i>hide</i>, you know? I want to change the way the world works, make a difference that matters. I can't do that just to avoid marrying someone, I'd take the arrangement if it meant giving me a chance. It would be different if I had a family that cared, or people to run away with to fight for the same cause but I don't." She looked over to him as she spoke, offering him a bit of a sad smile. She honestly wouldn't be so opposed to just running and never looking back, but she felt that wouldn't be fair for her to do. How could she abandon the people she had been trying to help?<br/><br/>She took a drink out of the bottle that was held gently between her fingers, dangling dangerously loose. She looked around, seeing the happiness and excitement that surrounded them. The families that laughed with one another, the kids who ran around, just having fun. "This is what I want, you know? I want to be able to have the 'picture perfect family,'" She quoted with her fingers. "I can't have it though, just gotta get with the system and suck it up. Sometimes it's all you can do." She looked back over to him, shrugging. She knew he had that, that he lost it, and she felt awful. It was one thing to never experience it, and likely never would be able to, but it was an entirely different thing to have it taken from you. To know what it was like to have everything in life that anyone could ask for, only to have it ripped from your grasp. She never had a loving family in the first place, not even her brother, so she couldn't begin to ever understand what that was like.<br/><br/>She began to feel a little down the more they spoke, knowing she didn't have much hope for anything relationship wise at this point in her life. She was a Montgomery, she was hated. So you could the imagine the initial surprise when Ethan pointed out he slight feelings for his boss. For<i>her</i>. It had to be a cruel joke, he'd been mean before, this was just another one of those times, right? She looked up quickly in surprise, looking into his eyes for a moment before smiling and looking back down. "Really? Even when she hit you with a car, and poured water on you? Your standards must be pretty low then." She laughed softly, teasing him with a dimpled grin.<br/><br/>"That's actually a coincidence, I think my coworker is kinda hot but, company policies and all." She let out an exasperated sigh, rolling her eyes before looking to the side with a smile. "Oh well, that's life I guess." She tucked her hair and bit her lip before finally giggling softly, taking another sip of her drink. She liked the way they admitted there sort of attraction to one another, it wasn't awkward or heartfelt, it was just them talking as they always did.<br/><br/>~<br/><br/>They had continued their back and forth conversation, hanging out for a couple of more hours while discussing his terms of employment. They agreed he would just help her as needed and she would train him in the more technical stuff. It wasn't too difficult once someone learned. She gave him her address, saying that he could stop by the next morning and they could get it all worked out before they both parted ways. She had a lot of work to do.<br/><br/>She rode the subway back home, but at this point was hardly able to keep her eyes open. She had gone nearly a week without sleep and it was beginning to take a rather large toll on her. She stumbled into her apartment when she reached it. Well, technically it was her parent's apartment as well, but they were never there so it didn't matter anyway. She was so exhausted that she didn't even close her door all the way, the lock not snapping into place, leaving her apartment a little cracked open. Smart.<br/><br/>She slung her things to the ground, pouring some coffee and walking to her lab area. She needed to figure out why they would blame her for the robots, and she needed to make sure that there wasn't any evidence they could use against her. She pulled out countless blueprints of her robots, of the robots she didn't build, just to find something she could use in defense of herself as she tried to find whatever it was that went wrong with the robot itself. She may not have built them all, but she still had most of the plans. She was the head of the department anyway.<br/><br/>She didn't last very long, however. At around 3 in the morning, she passed out on the floor of her lab, leaned up against a wall with papers scattered around her, her coffee cup empty and a pen in her hand. Usually this is what happened, she overworked herself, went a long time without sleep, pass out, and repeat. It didn't matter, no one actually noticed so she just continued to do so. But now she had even more on her plate. Not only did she need to finish her current project, but now she had to look into the recent accident as well. It was going to be one heck of a next few months.