Charlie was born to two army parents. Her father had a successful military career as a Colonel while her mother was content to work as a secretary for him. (However, her mother's real passion was writing! And sex!) Growing up, her sister, Justine, protected her from the brow beatings and mental abuse caused by their father, The Colonel. However, when Justine was kicked out of the house at 18, Charlie found herself a pre-teen being raised by a man who thought emotions were for the weak. Her brother, the middle child, had already been molded by The Colonel into a tough military machine and soon left to enlist. Her mother was distant at best, preferring to spend her time away from the house and her emotionally neglectant husband. Being raised by The Colonel's cold and virtually emotionless influence, molded Charlie into a very hard ambitious girl whose goal of being the best at everything didn't leave time for emotional attachments. Her parents divorced when she was in high school but she was too busy with school and college applications and taking community college classes to pay it much mind. She shoved aside all her childhood dreams of being a ballerina or a dancer or cheerleader for the pratical career of law. Deeply impacted as a child after the death of her sister's boyfriend, Jacob Lawson, Charlie was determined to follow in his footsteps, to complete the law career he never had a chance to. After graduating from UNLV in three years and stellar scores on the LSAT, Charlie entered Harvard Law school. Once completing there, she passed her Nevada State Bar Exam and immediatly began practicing for the famed Cosgrove, O'Reilly, and Reed firm in Las Vegas. She was assigned to handle one of their most promising clients...Zachery Slater, who had recently been handed a casino to run fully. Charlie was hired to check over contracts and acquisitions, as well as other business services on retainer. It was a coup for such a young lawyer and made a great deal of money for herself and the firm.

Charlie and Zach grew close over their months spent together. In Zach, she saw someone very much like herself. Someone who had little to no time for personal attachments, someone who was driven to succeed. And while her emotional detachment was from her upbringing, his was caused by the loss of his sister. They remained fairly cool towards each other, but that was all to change one fateful night. After winning a casino in a hand of poker, Zach called Charlie to celebrate the finalization of deal. Too much champagne coupled with a sexual tension that had been building for months was too much and exploded into a night of heated passion. It was a night neither of them would ever forget because only a few months later, Charlie discovered she was pregnant. She went to tell Zach the good news...only to find him otherwise engaged with the commissioner of the state licensing board. In a rather compromising position. Heartbroken and distraught, she had no other choice but to pack up and leave...hoping she never saw Zach Slater ever again

That usually doesn't happen though when a child is involved and not even five months to the day that she first walked out on Zach, he showed up on the doorstep of the modest house where she was currently living in St. Solanus. Becoming pregnant had changed Charlie, forcing her to bound and love her unborn child. She had decided to switch her specialty to take care of children caught up in the horror of divorce. Needless to say, Zach was hocked by her pregnancy but asked her to return to Vegas with him, going so far as to ask her to marry him. She declined but agreed to go for the length of her maternity leave. She ended up leaving two weeks before it was up, thanks to constant fights with Zach.

Determined to never let Zach get to her again, she distanced herself from him. Their monthly calls to set up visitation schedules for their daughter were terse at best. Sometimes, it even came to them trading barbs and insults. Life has a funny way of changing things though when suddenly, handling the largest divorce case of her career, her father suffered a massive stroke. Rushing to her father's side, she found herself looking for comfort in the most unlikely of places....mainly her former lover and now thorn in her side...Zach Slater. He didn't hesitate to comfort her and even went so far as to become her caretaker when she was stricken with ovarian cancer. Despite her better judgement, she agreed to marry him. Months went by with the same cool public relationship between them, all their passion reserved for private moments. She loved him, her first love. That was soon to change, however.

One evening, while riding with one of her high profile clients, Charlie was in a car accident. She sustained severe brain trauma, which left her in a coma for several weeks. When she awoke, she found herself a changed woman. Whatever part of personality that was buried from childhood came alive. She was more outgoing, social, and caring than ever before. But she had developed a dangerous addiction, one of attention. She would spend countless nights in bars, flirting with anyone who would buy her a drink. Hours spent dancing in the arms of strangers, teasing them. She never went home with any of them, until one night Fate stepped in.

Like most nights, she was hanging at the local hotspot of St. Solanus, Bliss. She had been getting mistaken more and more for a woman named "Cordelia" since she allowed her hair to grow out and go back to its natural color. She had no idea that tonight would be the night that she would meet a man named Angel. At first, she paid him no mind, just another one to flirt with in a long line of flirting with men. As her relationship with Zach grew more and more strained thanks to her nights spent out, she found herself becoming closer and closer friends with Angel. Even the fact that he was a vampire did little to keep her away. It only stalled things for a bit. After bargining with Caleb Morley, Angel was given a chance at mortality through Morley's healing spring. However, it was almost too late. In a last desperate attempt to win Zach back, Charlie went to see a doctor in LA about brain surgery to correct her damage. It was then that she cheated on Zach with a mortal Angel. After that weekend together, she knew that her and Zach were doomed so she put into motion the paperwork for their divorce.

After this realization, her time with Angel was short. She only had a week before trouble struck again. Kidnapped by one of his childer, Spike (for a second time!), she was in the middle of a plot by Drusilla to give a body to Angel's sire, Darla. Once Darla had infected Charlie with her essense, taking over, she used the bond between Charlie and Angel to lure Angel to a warehouse by the docks. Once there, Darla turned a mortal Angel into his worst fear, Angelus. Darla had no way of knowing though that Charlie was still a factor, fighting for control, since Dru didn't bother to remove her before putting Darla in. During one such moments of control, Charlie freed one girl, Becky Morrison, but was caught by Angelus before she could save herself. He brutualized her for hours on end, leaving very little not done to her body in terms of torture and abuse. Tramuatized, she regressed back, having no will to fight Darla for control any longer

With Darla in full control now, she used Charlie's body and memories to bring pain and suffering to people associated with Charlie. She and Dru threw Zach out of a casino window, killed Charlie's father, The Colonel, and turned nearly a dozen children who were the spitting image of Nadine. Luckily, Buffy and her friends managed to ensoul Angel and with his help, they brought Darla down, removing her essence and sticking it in a sock monkey. Charlie, however, still so tramuatized from what happened by Angelus' hand and what Darla did, would not surface. Angel and the gang risked everything to take Charlie to Caleb Morley, in an attempt to cure her with the healing spring. Unfortunatly, once in, Charlie could not find the will to live and sunk towards the bottom. She was rescued by Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, brought to the surface to live again

Unable to live with what she did, Charlie confessed to police and was put into Blue Ridge Aslyum after a plea bargin found her guilty by reason of insanity. Charlie spent several months in Blue Ridge, trying to integrate her cold and distant personality with her outgoing, flirteous one. Only when she was told that she could have children again, did she fight to get out. She was finally released with probation and mandatory psychiatric visits. However, her life is far from normal. She has lost her house, lost her first love, and is about to lose her daughter. Having a vampire for a lover doesn't exactly make things wine and roses either. All she can do is take it one day at a time, consoling herself with the fact that at long last, she might have found her place in this world.