Chapter Text
Six months.
Six months and the egg remained stable, but showed no signs of hatching.
The previous embryos had all been duds. The first three had lasted two months before failing to thrive. The next three had breached five. The last one had been so promising, hitting six months without complaint, hairline cracks snaking across the surface-and then nothing.
Another failure.
Herbert sighed as the incubation machine turned over the latest egg. InGen, bleeding funds like a stuck pig, had offered an ultimatum. If this one died as well…
He listlessly eyed the clock on top of the nearby filing cabinet. It was just past midnight. The lab was silent save for the whir of machinery. The rest of the staff had left, Harrod and Ward giving up and sulking off to the staff village to lick their wounds.
It was just him now.
Technically, it wasn’t supposed to be just him-Hans had dismissed him hours ago, knowing full well Herbert hadn’t slept in...how long had it been? It didn’t seem to matter. At any rate, he should’ve left at four, far before the rest of the lab tech, but leaving felt like admitting defeat.
He was never one to lose with grace.
He rubbed at his aching eyes, wishing he’d grabbed another coffee. He wasn’t going to sleep-his nerves made sure of that-but maybe it would’ve made this experience a little less miserable.
The machine set the egg down carefully, finding just the right angle to warm it. Herbert leaned closer, scanning the shell for any signs of hope. He was disappointed.
Nothing. A dud like the rest of them, more likely than not.
He glared at the unbroken calcium. There was no reason for it-
Well, no. That wasn’t true. There was plenty of reason for the embryos to fail. Their genetic coding could only be preserved so well. Adding strands from modern animals-there was no telling what sort of unforeseen mutations could arise. Life was always a finicky beast, never wanting to do anything against its own terms.
Another glance at the clock. He wasn’t sure what exactly he was waiting for. The egg would fail, and then...well, then what?
They’d find funding elsewhere. They’d make do. The revitalization project was decades old by now. He had no intentions to abandon it.
He should leave, call it a night and plan for tomorrow. There was no point in lamenting a failure. The path of progress was littered with them.
It was irrational, he knew, but some part of him didn’t want to give up on the egg. It was hard not to get emotionally invested, try as he did to suppress it. It was always important to keep an objective eye, but as egg after egg was disposed of, the frustration started to loom, insurmountable. Every last one of them was hours of work and research, weeks of wasted time and effort...but more injurious still, they were another aborted hope.
Another disappointment in a lifetime of sour luck.
Science requires sacrifice. Progress was born drenched in sweat and blood. He knew this, and yet…
What he wouldn’t give for something to finally go right.
There was a faint scratch.
He froze and turned his head slightly, trying to identify where it was coming from. There were an abundance of rats on the island, often sneaking into the lab...it could easily be one of them…
It wasn’t. The more he turned towards the egg, the more definite the sound became.
It couldn’t be-
The egg lurched, rolling back and forth.
He quickly leaned closer, scarcely daring to breath as he turned the egg carefully, looking for-
There.
A small chip in the shell, and far more importantly, the tip of a tiny claw wedging its way through, scratching at the shell’s edges.
It was hatching.
He stared in disbelief as the claw drew back into the shell. There was more scraping as the egg started to shake more aggressively. A faint crack, and the hole grew larger, a second claw joining its sibling.
He ran for the phone. He called Hans, hand shaking enough to misdial once before it finally rang. It sounded once, twice, three times-
Nothing.
The egg continued to wobble. The scratching was now backed by a sharp crack as another scrap of shell was dislodged. The voice machine beeped.
“It’s happening.”
He swallowed hard, frozen for a moment as a faint, high trill came from the egg.
“She’s here. Come when you can.”
He quickly set the phone down and grabbed a nearby set of needle-nose pliers, hovering anxiously by the emerging hatchling as he fumbled with a pair of gloves. She didn’t seem to need his help, quickly freeing one of her arms, but the rest of her was slow to break free. He almost set the pliers down-
Another trill, another shard of shell.
A bulging, vibrant green eye stared at him. The pupil slowly expanded and contracted, trying to take in the strange new world around her, the equally strange figure standing in front of her.
He carefully grasped one of the jagged edges of the shell with the pliers and cracked off another section. She trilled and scrabbled eagerly at the remains of her prison.
“Come on,” he whispered, “you’re almost there…”
Another crack, and legs unfurled, a tail stretched. She kicked at the air, hissing. He broke off the rest of top half, splitting the shell in two-
And she was free.
The chick flipped over onto her stomach, breathing heavily, crushing the last bits of shell beneath her. He backed away, giving her time to find herself. She slowly looked up at him, green eyes sharp and wary.
Strangers, aliens separated by millions of years, cautiously regarded each other.
He offered her a shaky hand. She sniffed at his fingers and licked the sterilized cotton covering them, rumbling softly. There was a moment of stillness, and she pressed her head into his palm. Soft tawny down, still damp with fluid, stuck to the glove as he dared to rub her snout, almost afraid to do so-as if she would dissolve, fade away if he pushed too hard.
He pulled away and she wobbled to her feet, following his hand. She trilled again, this time firm and ceaseless-she expected something from him.
Food. Right.
There was ground turkey in the fridge, saved in the off chance that it’d be used. He opened the carton quickly and offered her a pinch of raw meat. She eagerly pulled it out of his grasp and threw her head back, downing it in one swallow. He offered her another pinch, but nothing more. Best to see if her system could handle poultry before filling her with it.
She was shivering, still wet. He grabbed a towel and gently bundled her in it. She squawked and struggled, protesting until he held her to his chest, gently scratching the dip between her eye ridges with two fingers.
He sank to the floor, knees giving out as the miracle in his grasp rumbled and pushed her tiny head under his chin, seeking further warmth.
Tyrannosaurus Rex, the tyrant king, the ancient ruler of the animal kingdom, felled by a careless cosmic mistake. Left to fossilize and buried under the earth for millennia, unearthed and named by awestruck man…
And now...now trembling in his grip.
Alive.
Shuddering glee solidified into relief, settled somewhere close to hysteria, and he laughed, clinging to her as if they were the last living beings on Earth-and in that quiet lab, in the depths of night, on an oft-overlooked island in a restless ocean, they may as well have been.
Millions of years leading to now, life finally relenting.
A mistake corrected.
Corrected by him .
He didn’t notice that he was crying. Everything narrowed down to the body in his arms, now still, but warm and vibrating as it soundlessly voiced its pleasure. He leaned back, looking down at the chick, grinning.
“ Look at you.” His voice shook. “All of those years ago, you were here…”
She blinked, cocked her head, considering his voice. He laughed again and pulled her back into his embrace.
“Welcome back .”