Chapter Text
It takes seven weeks for the press to move on.
At first, it seemed it would never end. Relentless. Brutal. Owen likened them to the pterosaurs let loose on Main Street. She’d laughed at first - some foreign, high-pitched, breathy squawk - before she realised. They both fell silent.
Eventually, though, there’s a new story. A new disaster. New people whose lives have been turned upside down for them to hunt and prey on; tearing into them at the first sign of vulnerability.
(She’s seen dinosaurs with more mercy.)
It takes seven weeks before she can leave the hotel without being swarmed. Seven weeks before she can finally breathe again.
It’s strange. Nice, almost. Those first few days, she goes out whenever she can. Picks up groceries, walks around town, simply exists without a leering crowd waiting for the right moment to go in for the kill. Owen, too, takes advantage of their newfound freedom - running a few miles every morning.
She gets it.
She jolts awake to the memory of teeth, blood, screams. The crushing heaviness in her chest is the weight of all the lives lost because of her and it’s suffocating. All she wants to do is run. Run as far and as fast as she can. Run like she did at eighteen and never look back.
But look where that got her.
It’s in the eighth week that the reality of the situation hits her, full force. After they leave Karen’s house, following Gray’s birthday. After she leaves her nephews behind, again.
It comes out of nowhere; the Indominus-Rex lurking in the forest, camouflaged and waiting. Only this isn’t over so quickly.
She thinks she’s losing her mind, at first. And maybe she is. Maybe she already has, because nothing else seems to explain why she did the things she did. Nothing else could even come close to justifying the decisions she made that endangered the lives of thousands - her nephews included.
She must be insane. Incredibly ignorant. Both.
It’s small things, to start.
Like brushing her teeth in the morning and feeling the ground shift beneath her, heavy stomp of dinosaur footsteps in the distance.
Or falling asleep with Owen curled around her, waking up thinking the harsh breathing against her neck is that of a hybrid and not a human.
Then, she’s near certain she catches glimpses of red eyes and bloodied teeth, taunting her in the dark.
The more time passes, the more it affects her. The worse it gets. She starts to clamp her eyes shut when washing her eyes, because if she opens them, she sees blood. It stains her skin. It tints the water. It’s no longer a metaphor for her guilt, for it’s real; it’s real and she’s to blame.
The word ‘murderer’ echoes off of grimed bath tiles, reverberating through the deafening silence in her mind.
Wash all she might, she’ll never be clean. But, perhaps, she can come clean.
That night, she releases a statement admitting fault in it all. Explaining her part in the events; how it was her who signed the paperwork authorising the creation of the Indominus, how it was her who exploited the animals for money, how it was her who is to blame.
She follows it up by listing the names of every life lost that day - in the days that followed - and the cause of their deaths.
Her. All because of her.
Once she’s done, she deletes all her social media and powers off her phone, throwing it hard off the balcony. It forms a pile of broken pieces on the ground below.
She contemplates joining it. Doing the same to herself as she did her mobile.
(It wouldn’t be punishment enough.)
Instead, she slips back into the room and slides down the balcony door until she’s curled up on the floor. She closes her eyes, letting the images of that day burn into her eyelids.
The names and faces of those she didn’t do enough for will haunt her as long as she lives. Maybe that, she supposes, is her punishment. To never live a life free from them. To never live a life free from herself.
When her eyes finally open, she crawls across the floor and climbs into the bed, facing away from Owen.
She spends the rest of the night staring at the wall in front of her waiting for him to wake, because sleep doesn’t come easy to her these days. Not that it did, before.
Eventually, he stirs. She doesn’t know how much time passes. Minutes. Hours. It all feels the same, these days.
The mattress dips behind her as he reaches for her, pressing gentle kisses to her shoulder that leave her stomach rolling. The nausea creeps up her throat. Raptors narrowing in on their kill.
She rushes to the bathroom and heaves up shame and sickly guilt. He’s there in an instant; rubbing her back and pulling her hair out of her face. She’s too tired to fight him off.
She doesn’t deserve this. Him. His kindness. She doesn’t deserve anything.
By week twelve, the nausea grows and her muscles shrink. She doesn’t attempt to hide the fact she can no longer keep her meals down, for it is nothing particularly new.
The ghosts of her past rear their ugly heads, prodding at her gag reflex and acidic on her tongue. She cannot purge them away. She knows better than that, by now.
Still, she looks in the bathroom mirror after another failed attempt at stomaching lunch and sees the reflection of her twelve year old self. Tired. Drained. Alone.
(She’s missed this, in a sick and twisted way. Missed looking as sick as she feels. Missed the routine of her dysfunction, scraping by by the skin of her teeth and the strings of reflux that cling to her lips, hunched over the toilet bowl.)
Owen notices the change in her behaviour. He must; an animal behaviourist living with someone who’s lost all rights to humanity, there is no way he hasn’t. And, for a moment, she thinks he gets it.
Until he catches her teary eyed, jamming her fingers down her throat, and loses his shit.
He holds her tightly, that night. Whispering soft words of reassurance and even softer apologies that make her want to curl up into herself and cry. But she doesn’t. She can’t.
His kindness is undeserved. She reminds herself of that by digging her nails into her thighs until she breaks the skin, leaving smeared, red scratches in their wake. Faintly reminiscent of raptor claws.
Her brain jumps to conclusions she has reached before. That it’s the only reason Owen has stuck around - because she reminds him of one of his damn animals.
He looks at her like she is, sometimes. Hand stretched out in caution when she whips around with wide, feral eyes. Surge of pride when she finally does something right, only to go and mess it up immediately after.
(It’s unfair. She’s never been what anyone’s needed of her. Never been quite right.)
When he drifts off, she peels his arms off from around her waist and paces back and forth until he wakes to start his morning routine.
Breakfast is awkward. Tense.
She doesn’t know what to do when he watches her with concerned eyes, or keeps glancing at her plate. But then she realises that he doesn’t know what he’s doing, either.
It’s the first time she realises it’s his first time experiencing all this, too.
The guilt churns around inside, something rotten and bilious. It sits in her throat. Thick, heavy, warm. Like the jungle air back on Nublar - still suffocating her fifteen weeks later.
It takes sixteen weeks for her to tell Owen this.
She’s tired. So tired. Bone-deep exhaustion woven between years of scar tissue and wrongdoings, settled in her core. It’s part of her, by now.
He comes back from a job interview at the zoo to find her crammed into a corner of the closet, driving the heels of her palms into her eyes as she hyperventilates. The drywall behind her head is cracked, smeared with blood, and it’s all her fault. Teeth, blood, screams. Teeth, blood, screams. Her. Teeth, blood, screams. Teeth, blood, screams.
“Make it stop. Please.”
He carries her out the closet like a young child, cradling her to his chest. It’s been so long since she’s felt so small - like she’s six, again, being comforted by her sister after their dad had too much to drink again and lashed out at her.
She doesn’t tell Owen this. Hasn’t told him anything about her father, yet.
For as much as there’s parts of her he doesn’t understand, there’s also parts of her she refuses to let him see.
They fucked, the first night off the island. Spur of the moment - shock of having survived the war zone an hour’s ferry ride away - sort of thing. She doesn’t regret it. Not really. But he will never understand her primal need for control, for the lights to be off, for the chance to run away and not look back without a second’s warning.
He sees her every day, but he’s never seen her. Not how she sees herself.
It takes nineteen weeks for their first argument.
Well, not really. There’s been many before now; hot-headed and stubborn and snappy. Quick. Like the both of them.
But this…this is different.
This has been brewing for weeks. A category five storm, building up and building up and ready to touch ground. Katrina, all over again.
She’s lost weight. Both too much and not enough, all at once. She’s lost weight and she can’t eat and she can’t sleep, but she can somehow muster up the energy to scream at him for four hours. It doesn’t matter that he’s worried. Doesn’t matter that he cares.
She knows she’s ill. She still pushes him away.
He goes out the next day, earlier than usual. No morning kiss to her shoulder. No standing in the doorway, watching her sleep. (Not that she does - they both know better than to think that.)
She’s long gone by the time he gets back.
It’s week twenty by the time she returns.
Five days since their argument and four since she left, she knocks hesitantly on their hotel room door. He opens it quickly - too quickly, as though he was standing on the other side waiting for her - and she steps past him with trembling shoulders.
They don’t even make it five minutes before his lips are on hers, her hands pulling at his shirt as they stumble in the direction of the bedroom.
He moans. Something sharp and raw that catches in his throat with each exhale. Her eyes close on their own accord, body tensing.
Teeth, blood, screams. All over again.
Just like the first night, they fall asleep in the dark; a mess of tangled limbs and dried sweat. Too exhausted for the nightmares to reach them.
It takes everything within her not to cry when she wakes.
Owen sleeps longer than she does. Heavier; the weight of her leaving having pulled him down and run him to the ground. There’s bags under his eyes that liken her own and, for a moment, she looks at him and sees herself.
But then, she blinks and he’s back, breathing deeply as he stirs and reaches out for her. Hands warm against her cool skin. She flinches.
He asks how she slept, voice thick and brows furrowed, but she doesn’t lie, this time. When he breaks out in the brightest grin, it takes everything with her not to cry again at his purity. Her resolve crumbles.
He is light and warmth in everything he does. Calloused but gentle hands guiding her away from the darkness that tries to pull her down.
For a second, she thinks he can save her. But then she realises he can only save one of them, and she’s been dragging him down with her since she showed up unannounced at his bungalow.
He doesn’t deserve this.
And she doesn’t deserve him.
They make an agreement to get the hell out of the hotel, that afternoon, when he sees her hunched over on the stool in front of the kitchen counter. She must look pitiful, curled around herself. Protecting herself from threats no longer there. Protecting him from herself.
It’s not like they have to keep running, but a part of her thinks that, maybe, they should never have stopped.
So, run they do.
They start in California. Owen purchases a beat-up van with part of their ‘severance pay’. She pretends not to flinch when he calls it hush money.
For it’s not that. It’s blood money; stained by all the lives lost at the park. She funded this. Funded them. Her.
They go on a road trip, of sorts - travelling state to state with nothing but the idea of spending a few weeks with her sister and nephews in Wisconsin before carrying on to find their own place in the world.
It’s only been four months since they last spent the weekend round her family’s house. The old Claire would’ve thought that as days, but now, it’s too long for her liking.
The one good thing the park left her with, she supposes. The understanding that you never know which day will be your last.
(She always hopes for tomorrow.)
It takes twenty-three weeks for her to wrap her arms around her nephews and, for the first time in years, not comment on how much they’ve grown since she saw them last.
Still, Gray has shot up in those few months since their last visit. Without her heels on, he is almost as tall as her. Gangly and childlike, he bounds up to her with too much excitement, mop of curls brushing against her nose as she breathes him in.
Young. Innocent.
(He was even younger, at the park. When he could’ve died.
All because of her. Her.)
She doesn’t dare ask how he still has that naivety - that ingenuous joy. She didn’t, at his age. But, then again, they have lived completely different lives. He will grow up completely differently to how she did and it gives her hope for him; for both the boys.
She turns to Zach, next.
He is exactly the same as he was last. Quiet. Angry.
Disapproving.
He greets Owen without once meeting her eye, and she brushes off her hurt. Because she understands. She remembers what it was like being his age.
Karen, ever the mother, wraps an arm around her shoulder and whispers something in her ear she doesn’t quite catch. She nods, anyway. Mindlessly numb.
It takes twenty-four weeks until they’re on the road again.
Karen’s house was suffocating. Smothering her with worry and love. She pretends not to see the disappointment in the boys’ eyes when they pack up the van and promise to come by again, soon.
Owen is quieter now, too. It makes her worry. Scared he’s finally had enough of her, finally able to see through the haze and realise all of this is her fault.
She doesn’t sleep. Can’t sleep. Scared to close her eyes and open them to see he’s disappeared forever. Or, maybe, it’ll be her who disappears.
They drive for most of the day, stopping at a motel on the outskirts of Augusta, Maine.
She tenses, reading the road sign. Muscles taut and twitchy beneath her skin.
Owen doesn’t know her dad lives here now and she doesn’t tell him, either. She doesn’t know what to think of it, anyway.
Owen falls asleep before his head hits the pillow and she’s left to pace the small room until she fears the neighbouring rooms will complain to reception. She stops. The thoughts, however, don’t. The quiet of the night only seems to amplify them.
It’s strange, she thinks; for the first time in years, she isn’t alone, anymore. But god, she’s never felt so alone.
In the end, she lays down next to Owen. Flat on her back and staring up at the ceiling, counting the number of stains and marks that mar the paint and tracing the outline of areas it peels away from. But then, she’s counting the number of people who died because of her, tracing the outline of their lifeless bodies and the teeth of the Indominus tearing into them.
Teeth, blood, screams. Teeth, blood, screams.
She gives up on sleep and curls up on the bathroom floor, head resting against the toilet seat as rivulets of remorse and blame drip pitifully from her lips.
They go to a nearby diner for breakfast, in the morning. Crammed into a worn, leather booth.
It’s loud. Crowded. Too much to focus on, from the wailing child two booths behind them to the smell of eggs and grease. Her stomach lurches.
She turns her head to the side, watching as a little girl across from her spreads raspberry jelly across her toast and starts eating it. She gags. For just a moment, the bite marks in the corner aren’t human and the red smear isn’t jelly. For just a moment, it isn’t bread being bitten into.
Teeth, blood, screams.
She whimpers pathetically. Owen squeezes her hand gently - a steady rhythm, pulling her attention back towards him. It’s not even been two minutes since they were seated, they haven’t even had time to order coffee, yet, but she looks up at him and pleads with him to leave. They do.
He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t ask anything in the car. But he doesn’t have to. He knows. He always does.
He drives them out into the city and she settles to the low hum of the radio and the sound of his fingers tapping the steering wheel in beat with the music. She sinks in her seat, staring out of the window and wondering if any of the houses they pass are her father’s.
(She wonders if he ever looks out his window, too, in search of her. If he feels ashamed of all he did. Of all he didn’t do.
She wonders if he would even recognise her, now? She doesn’t recognise herself.)
The van pulls to a stop in some run-down parking lot and Owen helps her out onto her feet, holding her hand as he leads her through the streets.
The sea air hits her face, cold and harsh. Everything, everywhere, all at once. She doesn’t feel him lead her down the beach until the water laps around her ankles, feet sinking into the sand. And then, he’s not there.
She’s drowning. Head held underwater, world fading to black around her.
It’s like she’s fifteen, again; unable to find an escape so choosing to make her own. Like she’s fifteen again, sinking into the warmth of death and praying whatever fate awaits her is better than the life she lives.
But then, there’s arms wrapped tightly around her waist, strong and secure. They pull her up, cradling her close and speaking to her so softly that her head spins viciously, stomach lurching. They shift her to the side just in time for her to cough up the meagre contents inside.
“I’ve got you, Claire. I’ve got you.”