Archive of Our Own

If you go into the fire and come out alive
You’ve already won the fight
Even when every day seems like a lot
Just hold on to what you’ve got


"Nothing to Lose" by Hollow Coves


-----

2004

“Claire?”

The evening sky flashed with lightning, wind and rain pounding hard against the building.  The rain was warm.  Claire could feel the drops coming through the window screen.  Masrani would scold her for that later, but she keeps the window open anyway, desperate for the warmth against the chill in her bones, spreading all across her body, freezing her heart in her chest.

“Claire?  Are you still there?”

She tries to grip the phone tighter, but her hands are shaking and she drops it instead.  Fumbling for the phone, she manages to find it without tearing her eyes away from the storm.  “Sorry, Karen.  I’m here.”

“Why haven’t you been answering your phone?  Mom and Dad-”

“I know , Karen.”

Karen sighs.  “Are you sure you don’t want to come home? ”

“My internship isn’t finished.”

“No one would hold that against you, Claire-bear.”

She swallows tightly.  She wants to tell Karen not to call her by that nickname; she’s not a child .  She doesn’t need to be coddled or fussed over.  If this internship has taught her anything, it’s that she can take care of herself.  Maybe she can’t depend on anyone else, not Karen or her parents and certainly not anyone on the island.  All she says to Karen is, “I would.”  

It’s more truthful than she’s aiming for, but she’s never been able to keep things from her sister.  It’s the other reason why she’s been avoiding phone calls.

“Claire, it’s not on you to fix this.  You do know that, right?”

“Who else would?”

It’s not the first time she’s posed the question.  Her parents hadn’t understood, instead begging her to fly home.

Karen hadn’t begged, and she didn’t now, either.  A week ago, she had gently suggested that maybe it was better for Claire to come home, so she could be around family, be somewhere safe.  Claire hadn’t been able to tell her sister she wasn’t sure she’d ever feel safe again.  In the first week of her internship, she’d told Karen in a quiet, shaky voice that she felt like she finally belonged somewhere.

She felt betrayed, now, like the universe was telling her she wasn’t allowed to belong.  She wasn’t allowed to feel at home anywhere.

“Maybe it’s not meant to be fixed.”

She’s not ready to accept that.  Nothing in her life feels quite right anymore, and maybe it never would, but she does know that going back to the life she had before wouldn’t change how she felt.

Claire had never doubted her instincts before.  Not when she started volunteering at the animal shelter or raised the money to save a stray goat or applied to a college far away from home.  Not when she turned down safer opportunities to accept an internship on Isla Nublar.

If her instincts had brought her here for a reason, then this couldn’t be the end.  She had always wanted to make a real difference, after all.  There’s no way running away now would allow for any of that.

Claire presses her face against the screen, closing her eyes as the rain drops reach her skin.  She thinks of Earhart, whose tail would thump against the floor when she’d scratch behind his ears.  She thinks of her sister and her nephews, chasing each other around the backyard.  She thinks of her parents sitting around the fire pit, each holding sticks stuffed with marshmallows into the flames.

She thinks of Dr. Wu in his lab, telling her, “You could leave, live a boring little life, or you could stay and be part of something truly revolutionary.”

She opens her eyes.

“I’m staying, Karen.  I can fix it.”



2022



“And I can fix it.”

Standing behind Maisie, Claire locks her gaze on Henry Wu, clutching his messenger bag like it’s the only thing keeping him standing.  As worn down as he looks, she still barely suppresses the urge to pull Maisie behind her, to keep her out of Henry’s direct sight.  Whatever his intentions, it seems unlikely he wants to hurt anyone.  Claire knows Maisie well enough by now, and her body language is not tense.  She doesn’t seem to be frightened, and Claire may not  trust Henry, but she does trust her daughter.

Henry talks of finding a solution for the locusts, and for a moment, Claire sees him as he was almost 20 years before, standing tall in his office on Isla Nublar surrounded by test tubes and large pieces of amber.

She hadn’t trusted him then anymore than she does now, but she has never forgotten what he told her after the first raptor incident she’d been involved in on the island.  Nature takes, and nature gives.  What makes a difference is what we choose to learn from our mistakes.

A small part of Claire is disappointed.  Henry had preached the importance of making sure the same mistakes don’t happen again, and how many years had he spent making the same ones?

But Claire reminds herself that she had made some of the same mistakes he did; that she had been just as caught up in the vision as he had been, in some ways.  Once, she had just wanted to fix it, too. 

“It’s okay,” Maisie says, her eyes meeting Claire’s.  “It’s okay.  It’s what she would have wanted.”

When Claire looks at Henry, she finds that he’s looking at her, too.  She nods, and thinks they have an understanding.

Ellie had said, “What matters is what we do now.”

What do we do now?

Probably stick together.  For survival .


Claire hadn’t meant to get involved this time.  All she had wanted was to get her daughter back.  She got involved anyway, and it feels different this time.  Once, she had fled Isla Nublar and felt despair, feeling as though her whole life had gone up in flames.  She had fled Lockwood Manor and intentionally ran away from the outside world.  Claire looks between Maisie and Owen and feels her resolve solidify, the flame she’d been carrying around with her since forming the DPG reigniting.  She was going to keep fighting.  For humans, for dinosaurs, for the connection between every living thing in the natural world.  She’d never been able to let go, and there was a reason.

Before all of that, though, she was going to make sure she got everyone out of the valley alive.



2015


There are too many people on the island.

Two days ago, Claire had reported the quarterly park attendance to Simon Masrani, the statistic sandwiched in between increasing food costs and the overtime paid out to park veterinarians dealing with a minor fungal infection.  Park attendance hadn’t seemed high enough.  Revenue had been steady, but costs were increasing.  They needed more - more tourists, more animals, more sponsors.


We need more.


Claire’s stomach was still twisted in knots, fear and anxiety and relief and disgust raging for dominance inside her.  She hadn’t taken her eyes off the people surrounding the ferry dock since Owen had driven them there hours ago, themselves and Lowery among the last to show up.

There was a tree tucked in an inlet on the docks.  She’d parked Zach and Gray there to wait, sitting between them while Owen assisted the medics.  Restless, desperate to help, if only to keep her mind occupied, she’d wanted to go with Owen.  Unwilling to leave Zach and Gray, she sat in wet grass instead, watching.

Every snap of a tree branch, every unexpected movement caused her heart to seize up in fear, her instincts to run strong, screaming at her to leave.  Get out.  She tried to hold herself together for her nephews.  She tried a few times to talk to them, but her throat was tight.  Much like Claire, Zach was watching the crowd, on alert.  Gray was tucked up against her shoulder, his fingers wearing down a stone.

From what Claire had gathered, the first three cruise ships had already departed, carrying Jurassic World staff and around half of the visitors who had been on the island to Costa Rica.  Another three ships were scheduled to arrive within the hour.

Claire started running the numbers.  Twenty thousand visitors a day.  How many staff had made it onto the first boats?  How many visitors?  If the ships that had made it to the docks were Jurassic World cruisers, they could carry 4,000 passengers, maybe a few more if they’d kept the crew minimal.  Even if 12,000 had made it off already, that left another 8,000 waiting.  It was too many people, and an hour was too long to wait.  How long would the T-rex be satisfied with the food it found outside of its paddock before she was attracted to the noise and heat of the docks?  Would Blue, who had lost almost her whole pack, come around looking for Owen?


We need more teeth .


“Aunt Claire?”

Claire doesn’t realize she’s shaking until Gray gently nudges her, shifting against her side.  “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, sweetie,” she assures him, briefly squeezing his hand.  “Are you?”

“I want to go home,” he says, quietly.

“Don’t worry,” Zach says.  He stands up from next to Claire and walks over to his brother’s side, ruffling his hair before sitting down next to him.  “We’ll get one of the next ships, alright?  We’ll be home in no time, and you’ll be complaining about all of the snow.”

Zach and Gray bicker, and Claire takes a shuddering breath, tucking her knees against her chest, arms crossed over them.  Zach is a good brother.  She thinks she should be doing a better job of taking care of them, but she didn’t really even know them.  She had sacrificed knowing her family, and for what?

She looks back out at the crowd, hoping to find Owen.  What she sees is a crowd of terrified people, all of them anxiously watching the water, presumably waiting for the first sounds of ships coming in.

The ships coming to bring them home.

Where is she going?

For the first time since the Indominus had escaped, Claire realized that while everyone on the docks was waiting to go home, she wasn’t.  Claire was sitting here waiting to leave her home.  As messy and imperfect as it had been - as terrible as the past hours had been - Isla Nublar was her home.  She’d spent more time on this island than she had anywhere else in the world since she was 19.  She thinks of the small staff apartment she’d lived in for the last 8 years, with her bookshelves and photos of Earhart and Sally and of Karen and the boys, the laptop with years worth of photos and written journals from Jurassic World.  She doesn’t even have a permanent residence anywhere else.

The guilt rages within her, bile rising in her throat.  She shouldn’t feel sad to be leaving this place.  This is her own doing, her own failure to control something she swore she would fix 10 years ago.

But she is.  

She’s jolted out of her thoughts by Owen, who comes to let them know it’s time for them to board.  She hurries to shuffle Zach and Gray towards the line of people waiting, her hand so tight on Gray’s arm he complains before she realizes she’s doing it.

10 years.  

This has been her home for 10 years.  Claire never thought she would leave this place.  She hasn’t thought of going anywhere else, of doing anything else.  Could this really happen?  10 years of her life crashing down in a single day?  

When Claire had said, “We’d never reopen”, what she had meant was, I’ll lose everything.

Jurassic World was going to be ripped from her as quickly as it came.  That, at least, makes some sort of sense.  She doesn’t deserve anything more.

She feels her breath coming faster the closer Zach and Gray get to the front of the line.  She wants them on that ship, wants them safe with Karen in Wisconsin, far away from dinosaurs.  But her - 

Does anyone know about InGen evacuating the lab?

What’s going to happen to the animals?

How can they be sure that everyone is on the docks?


You don’t leave people behind .


Claire freezes in her tracks, her bare feet sinking into the soft sand.  She can’t move.  She can barely think.  There’s a forked path in front of her.  She knows the one she has to take.  She can’t send Zach and Gray on the ship without her.  She has to make sure they get back to Costa Rica.

But how can she leave ?

“Come on, Claire.”  Owen comes beside her, placing a hand on the small of her back, urging her forward.  “It’s going to be alright.”

“But I-” Claire looks at him, unable to speak.  She tries to blink the tears out of her eyes.

“I know,” Owen says.  “It’s okay.”

If anyone understands, she thinks it’s probably Owen, who lost Echo and Delta and Charlie and now is leaving Blue behind.

“What if there are still people left behind, Owen?”

“Claire,” he says gently, “no one but us was around on Main Street.”

“And the exhibits?”

“Look, I spoke with EMS.  The Coast Guard and the Navy are on their way, too.  They’re going to look for any other survivors, alright?  Now, come on.  I’m getting you and Zach and Gray off this island.”

Claire wants to throw herself into Owen’s arms and never let him go.  She wants to pull Zach and Gray towards her, wants to never let them out of her sight again.  She wants to leave this island and never come back. 

She wants to stay.  She doesn’t want to leave the first place she ever felt like she belonged.  If she goes back to the world now - what does that mean?  What will she do?

“Are you ok, Aunt Claire?”

Gray’s voice pulls her out of her thoughts.  She thinks of her nephews, brave enough to run from the Indominus, able to keep their wits about them and start a car that had been sitting unused for twenty years.

“Yes,” she says.  “Come on, boys.  Let’s go.”

Claire guides them onto the ship, Owen following close behind them.  Gray, sticking to his brother, watches the island as they sail away.

Claire doesn’t.  She closes her eyes, tears stinging against her eyelids, and doesn’t open them until she is sure she won’t see anything else but the ocean.



2018


The ocean slowly starts to surround them, but Claire doesn’t notice, her eyes fixed on Isla Nublar, ears ringing with the cacophony of an erupting volcano, the cries of Pteranodons fleeing, the bellowing of a Brachiosaurus echoing across the water.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, her eyes fixed on the island even as the tears blur her vision.  When they had fled the island three years ago, she’d thought she would never see it again.  Despite her anger at Mills and Wheatley, despite her anger at herself for believing them, Claire is grateful she had one more chance to see it.  

Owen had been right, of course.  She had good memories of this place, which had brought beauty and purpose into her life.  

She knows she’ll never see Isla Nublar again.

This time, she’s going to be grateful for everything the island gave her. 

“I won’t forget,” she says, then turns around, scanning the area until she finds Owen.

She knows what she has to do now.



2022


She startles awake, heart pounding in her chest, a scream building in her throat before she registers Owen behind her, one arm slung around her waist.  She hiccups and shudders, taking deep breaths to try to calm her pounding heart.

It’s okay , she thinks, you’re safe.  Owen and Maisie are safe.  You’re fine .

Claire’s dealt with her fair share of nightmares over the years, and the rotation clicks through her mind like a photo reel.  An erupting volcano and dinosaurs bellowing in despair as a boat inches away from the island.  Zach and Gray, trapped in a gyrosphere while the Indominus kills in the valley.  Bright flares and the click of her heels as she leads the T-Rex to the Indominus, only to find that she’s too late, that Zach and Gray and Owen and Blue had been torn apart.  A quarantine paddock and a boy bleeding out.  A helicopter spiraling down, crashing through aviary glass.

She knows those.  She’s used to them.  

This one had been different.  Her heart calms, no longer pounding against her chest.  Suddenly, she feels like she can’t breathe.  She’s underwater, she’s in a forest surrounded by smoke, and her lungs are burning. 

She doesn’t realize she’s crying until she’s brought out of her head by Owen, who turns her over and envelopes her tightly in his arms.  “Hey, Claire,” he whispers, raising a hand to stroke her cheek.  “What’s wrong, honey?  Another nightmare?”

Choking back a sob, she rests her ear against Owen’s chest, listening to the rhythm of his heartbeat.  A few beats, and she can’t hold back her sobs anymore, wailing as she clutches at his shirt.  She knows she should be careful.  He has cracked ribs and his hip is bruised, but she can’t bring herself to move away.

Owen holds her tight against him, rubbing circles into the small of her back, still holding her cheek.  He presses his nose into her hair.  “It’s alright.  We’re alright.”

Gradually, Owen’s presence helps ground her.  She sniffles when her tears slow, feeling shaky.  “Can you turn on the light?  I want to see you.”

He kisses her temple before releasing her.  She shivers, immediately missing the contact, but before his absence can trigger her fear again, Owen’s back, having turned on the lamp next to their bed.  Owen pulls her in close, brushing hair away from her face.

“This one was different,” Claire tells him.  “It -” she hiccups, and the words come flying out.  “It was the plane.  Owen, I really thought you were dead!”

The tears start fresh in her eyes, and she sobs again.  She’s in the trees, watching rising smoke above the mountains.  Owen cups her face in his hands, brushes tears away with his thumb.  He tries hard to hide his winces when he moves his elbow, but she notices, and it almost makes her hysterical again.  “Hey,” Owen says, kissing her softly.  “I’m sorry.  There wasn’t any time.”

He’s right, of course.  Trained to be cool under pressure, Kayla and Owen had been ten steps ahead, already preparing for the possibility of dying before she’d even realized what was happening.  

“You were the best shot for Maisie, and I wanted to save you.”

“I-” she hiccups, taking a deep breath.  “I couldn’t even - speak, I couldn’t-”

“You did what you needed to do, Claire.”

Owen had told her he loved her, and she hadn’t even been able to say it back.  She loves him, and he knows it, but it had become a mantra as she made her way through the forest, her focus on finding their daughter even as the image of smoke clouded her vision.  I love you.  This can’t be the end.  I love you .

She sniffles, and reaches up to hold one of his hands.  “I didn’t want to leave you behind.”

“I didn’t want to leave you behind, either.”  Owen pulls her hand towards him, kissing each of her knuckles.  “I was scared, too, you know.”

She wants to say, let’s not do it again .  She wants to say, I won’t let it happen again .  She doesn’t say either, because she knows it isn’t something she can promise.  She can’t stay away from dinosaurs any more than Owen and Maisie can.  It’s what brought the 3 of them together, something sacred they share.  She’ll do everything in her power to keep her family safe, and maybe that means re-evaluating what she does to help.  

As the light flickers on the nightstand, Claire opts for action rather than words.  She kisses Owen, her mouth sliding open easily for him.  He squeezes her hip, and Claire knows what he’s asking.  She rolls onto her back, and for a moment, forgets about everything except him.




Curled up against Owen, their hands linked over his chest, she asks, “What do we do now?”

She can hear his mirth when he replies, “Probably stick together.”

She’s not sure whether to laugh or roll her eyes.  “For survival, huh?”

“Something like that.”  Owen reaches down to tug the blankets back over them.  “You’ll figure it out.  You always do.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“That’s okay.”  Owen rests his head against hers.  “I am.  Anyway, the first thing we should probably do is buy new phones.”

Neither of their phones had survived the ordeal.  Once they had made it out of the valley, Claire had borrowed Ellie’s to send a quick text to her sister to let her know they were okay, but Claire wasn’t sure she had the bandwidth to deal with what being connected again would mean.

“I’d rather not.”

“You don’t mean that, and anyway, if we don’t do it soon, your sister is going to show up here and tear us both a new one.  You know that.”

“I do, but… what’s going to happen to Maisie now?”

Owen’s hard swallow betrays the calm in his voice.  “She’s going to be fine.”

“I’m scared,” Claire admits, her voice barely a whisper.  “I don’t want to lose her.”

“We said we’d protect her, and that’s what we did.  We aren’t going to lose her.”

“Owen, we took her away from her home.”

“She came willingly.”

“She didn’t have another choice!”

“Claire,” Owen says placatingly, “I know she hasn’t exactly been a fan of being stuck in the cabin for four years, but I think she’s proven that if she wanted to leave, she would have.”

Owen’s right, and Claire has to remind herself that things with Maisie weren’t always as tense as they had been recently.  “I know, but -” she sighs, then asks, “What if she’s taken from us?  What if some judge decides she’s better off without us, and -”

“Hey.  That isn’t going to happen.  Okay?”

She wants to believe him, but her throat is tight, again, and she can’t bring herself to speak.  Owen squeezes her hand.  “You know, I wasn’t sure - I wasn’t sure I was going to see either of you again.”

Claire knows that.  Owen has barely let them out of his sight since finding her again.  

“You did,” Claire tells him.

“I did,” he agrees.  It’s his way of telling her that he’s going to keep them together, no matter what.  “We’ll talk to Maisie tomorrow.  We’re a team, remember?  We’ll figure this out together.”



2018


“Owen?  Maisie?” Claire speaks quietly as she unlocks the door, shutting it softly behind her.  

She doesn’t see either of them, but hears the shower running.  She places the bags on the hotel bed and limps over to the door connecting the two rooms, which had been left open.  She walks through to the second room to find Maisie asleep, curled into a tight ball under the covers. 

Reassured, at least for now, she walks slowly back towards the bed, starting to sort through the bags she’d placed there.  Sorting quickly, she separates the spare clothes she’d picked up for Owen and heads towards the bathroom.  She knocks twice, calling out, “Owen, I’ve got clean clothes for you.”

“Great.”  His voice was muffled through the sounds of the shower.  “Door’s unlocked, can you leave them inside?”

That does give her pause.  When she doesn’t respond, Owen says, “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”

Exhausted, the wound on her leg throbbing, she couldn’t find it in herself to give him a hard time.  She clears her throat, opens the door, and tosses the clothes inside before shutting it, ignoring Owen’s chuckle.

She limps back over to the bed, and pulls out the spare clothes and toothbrush she’d picked up for Maisie, deciding to leave them on the couch for now, unwilling to wake her.  There wasn’t much else for her to sort - some bottled water, protein bars and snacks, and the antibiotics and painkillers the ER doctor had prescribed for her leg.

When Owen emerges from the shower, she’s sitting on the edge of the bed, trying to keep the chip bag from making too much noise.  “Didn’t you once tell me Cheetos were an abomination?”

Claire ignores him, gesturing towards the ‘I heart California!” shirt he was wearing.  “Nice shirt.”

“You bought it.”  Owen sits down next to her, reaching into the Cheetos bag.

With a shrug, Claire reaches for her bottle of water, swallowing the antibiotic before grabbing another handful of chips.  “It was either that, or the Washington Nationals.”

Owen wrinkles his nose.  “We’re in California!”

“Why does it matter?  I know you’re not a Giants fan.”

Owen snorted and gestured towards the bag.  “What else did you get?”

“Some clothes for Maisie, when she wakes up.  Some snacks and water.  I would have gotten more, but…” she smiles, painfully.  “Walking hurts a little right now.”

Claire hadn’t even wanted to risk a hospital, but she knew Owen had been right to insist she get her leg looked at.  She’d begged Zia to look at it before leaving Lockwood Manor, but Zia herself had said there really wasn’t much she could do for Claire, and anyway, she certainly couldn’t prescribe antibiotics.  Zia and Franklin had both been anxious to leave before the authorities showed up at the Manor, and Claire had been anxious to get Maisie out of there, so she’d convinced Owen to at least drive the 40 some miles to the nearest town before she’d dropped Owen and Maisie off at a hotel and then gone to the ER.

She didn’t know what they were going to do now.  She hadn’t stopped to think about it, and wasn’t particularly ready to do that.  

With Maisie asleep, and Owen out of the bathroom, Claire figured she couldn’t put off getting cleaned up any longer.  Never in her life had she felt so torn about a shower - desperately wanting one, but also not wanting to deal with the injury.  

She handed the Cheetos bag over to Owen and stood up gingerly.  “I’m going to shower.”

Owen frowns.  “You have stitches.”

“I won’t get them wet.”

“Claire-”

She stares him into silence, then hobbles to the bathroom.  It’s not comfortable, gauze and medical tape wrapped around her thigh, keeping one leg out of the shower, but it’s worth it to have clean hair, to not smell like dinosaur musk and the ocean.

She emerges from the bathroom with her hair still wet, dressed in an oversized shirt and loose shorts, which were much easier to pull on over her wound than pants would have been.  Owen has cleaned up the bags and locked up the room, and is sitting in bed, legs under the covers, a map of California propped open in his lap.

Claire climbs into bed next to him, wincing as she moves her leg.  They hadn’t really had a conversation about the single bed.  Owen had asked for adjoining rooms, they’d had one available, and they’d taken it.  Claire had been too worried about Maisie to really think about it, and anyway, it was Owen.  It was weird, but mostly because it felt normal.  Claire felt more settled than she had in a long time, and she tried not to think too much about that, either.

“You doing okay?” Owen asked her.

“I’ve been worse.  What about you?”

“Believe it or not, that wasn’t the first time I’ve been tranquilized.  I’ll tell you the story sometime.”

Leaning her head back against the pillows, Claire closed her eyes, taking a shuddering breath, hoping that the adrenaline and fear of the day would leave her body along with the air.  It didn’t work, and eventually she opened her eyes again, gaze fixed on the ceiling.

“I’m sorry.”

She can hear Owen folding up the map as he asks, “For what?”

“All of it.”  Her voice is barely louder than a whisper.  “I really … I really thought Mills was going to help.”

“I know you did.”

She rubs at her eyes, willing her eyes to stop leaking.  “You didn’t trust him.”

There’s a beat before Owen responds.  “No, I didn’t.”

“So why did you come?”

“I just told you.  I didn’t trust Mills.”

“That wouldn’t have mattered if you had stayed behind.”

Owen reaches out and takes her hand, tugging on it until Claire looks at him.  She swallows, fighting the fluttering in her chest.  “You asked, Claire.”

“I thought I was doing the right thing.”

“I know,” Owen whispers, shifting his body to more easily face her.

“I thought that before, too,” she whispers.  “Maybe I just-”

“Claire.”  Owen interrupts her, squeezing her hand.  “This one isn’t on you.  I meant that.  People have been exploiting animals long before we brought dinosaurs back from extinction.  Mills was going to that island with or without us.  Blue’s alive because we went.  I’m not sorry about that.”

She sniffles, rubbing at her nose with her free hand, and takes another deep breath.  “He was right,” she whispers.  “I’m not any better.”

“No,” Owen says, fiercely, placing a hand on her shoulder.  “You are better than him.”

“Am I?”  When Claire looks at him this time, she’s blinking the tears out of her eyes.  “I should have known better.  All those years on the island, everything InGen put us through and I still trusted him.”

“Hey.” Owen raises his hand to her cheek and wipes away her tears with his thumb.  “You want to see the good in people.  There isn’t anything wrong with that.”

“Isn’t there?” She looks down at her lap.  “I tried something different after Jurassic World, but it doesn’t seem like anything has changed.”

Owen gently tilts her chin so she’s looking at him.  “This didn’t go the way you wanted.  Fine.  I think what matters most is how we handle it.  That’s how we make a difference, Claire.  Besides, we have more immediate issues now, don’t you think?”

Claire’s eyes flit to the door of the adjoining room.

Owen says, “I really thought I’d seen it all, but a human clone?”

“I can’t even imagine what that poor girl has been through,” Claire tells him.  She didn’t really know Maisie, and she couldn’t explain to herself why she felt so fiercely protective over her, but she did.  All she knew was that she couldn’t leave her.  Claire needed to know that she would be safe.  “Can you imagine what could happen to her once the word gets out?  I can’t just leave her behind, Owen.  I won’t.”

“You’re sure about this?”

“Of course I am!” Her voice comes out louder than she’d intended, and she glances quickly at the hallway joining their rooms.  Lowering her voice, she continued, “What, did you think I stole a car and, and ran off with someone else’s child without being sure of it?!”

“Look, I’m sorry,” Owen says, raising his hands placatingly.  “But this is a little more complicated than -”

“Don’t you think I know that?!”

“Alright, alright.  Sorry.”

There’s an awkward silence, and Claire regrets her outburst almost immediately.  With a sigh, she says, “I really have no idea what I’m doing here, okay?  I just… I can’t explain it, but… but I have to make sure she’s safe.”

Owen looked into her eyes, and says, “ We’ll make sure she’s safe.”

Claire feels her stomach twist, her heartbeat speeding up. 

The summer after her freshman year of college, she’d looked at Karen and Scott and Zach, their family settling into her hometown and Sunday dinners with her parents, and thought, I am built to run .  She’s not sure she’s stopped running, not once in 14 years.  In the literal sense, she wasn’t about to now, not when she had to protect Maisie.

The difference, this time, is she sees more than two paths in front of her.  Maybe her choices don’t have to be to stay or to go.  Maybe she can have the DPG, advocate for the dinosaurs she had a hand in creating, but have something else, too.

Tentatively, Claire reaches out, resting her hand on Owen’s elbow.  “I’m sorry I told you to leave.”

“I’m sorry I left.”

“Does that mean you want to stay?”

“Does that mean you want me to?”

Claire huffs.  “It was never about you,” she admits.  She tries to move her hand away, but Owen reaches out, holding her hand against his arm with his own.  “You made me so happy, but the guilt was suffocating, Owen.  The longer we spent hiding out from the world, the worse it felt.”

“So it wasn’t about the van?”

Claire rolls her eyes, and she does pull her hand away this time.  “I told you, the problem was you not letting me drive the van.”

“Remind me what that whack therapist said about your control issues?”

“That’s insensitive, and how would you know, anyway?  You never went.”

“Because I didn’t need it.”

“Right, because living in a van and staying off the grid in the mountains is a totally normal reaction-”

“It’s more normal than flying onto an active volcano to save dinosaurs.”

“And yet, you went with me, so what does that say?”

Owen, tilting his head, says, “Probably nothing good.”  But then he smiles at her.  “I was really happy when you came to me in the mountains.”

“You were?”

“Of course I was.”  He reached to brush a strand of hair out of her face, his fingers lingering on her ear.  She inhaled sharply, her cheeks flushing.  Owen had always loved playing with her hair, and she had missed it so much.  “I missed you,” Owen says.

“I missed you too.  Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“What was your original plan?  After rescuing Blue, I mean.”

“I told you.  I have a cabin to finish.”  

“Owen, be serious.”

“I am.  I built a fire pit outside.  Made seats out of trees and everything.”

Claire pauses, her eyes wide.  She remembers the conversation he’s referring to.  One stormy afternoon in the Redwoods, they’d curled up together in the van, listening to the rain against the windows, and Claire had told him what she missed most about Wisconsin.  Her family, of course, but also, the fire pit her father had built in their backyard, with seats made out of logs and string lights hung around the outside.  

She tilts her head.  “No string lights?”

“I’ll work on it.  Also, I’ll have you know there’s a real shower.”

She raises her eyebrows.  “What, you’re too good for a solar shower in a tent now?”

Owen smirks at her.

Claire swallows, and tells herself to be brave.  How was facing down the Indoraptor easier than this?  “You factored me in?”

“Well, you know, there’s more to life than beer around a campfire, isn’t there?”  Claire inhales sharply, and before she can speak, Owen pulls her into a kiss.  In the mansion, it had been frantic, the only way Claire could think to say I love you and I’m sorry if she never made it back to him.  This was anything but, slow and gentle, a promise.  Owen pulls back but keeps her lips close.  “I’m with you, Claire.  I’m with you wherever you want to go.”

She feels her heart swelling in her chest, and despite her fear, all she felt was warmth.  It was everything she had wanted, and she’d been too heartbroken before to think maybe time was all they both had needed.  

She wasn’t sure what to expect when the morning came.  Before leaving Lockwood Manor, Claire had asked Maisie if there was somewhere they could take her, but she’d shaken her head, clinging to Owen.  Owen had promised they’d make sure she was safe, and for now, she was.  That was different than what she and Owen were dancing around now, the idea of hiding her for however long it took for things to settle down after the incident.  It wasn’t fair to her, but she couldn’t see any other choice.

She trusted Owen, though.  He had never abandoned her when she’d asked for help, and had always had faith in her when she lost it in herself.  Claire spares a brief moment to thank the island, again, for bringing Owen back into her life.  “Where should we go in the morning?”

“Let’s go to the cabin,” Owen suggests, arms tight around her.  “The van is still there.  You and Maisie can sleep there while we finish it up.  We’ll figure this out one day at a time, together.  Okay?”

“Okay.”

It was the easiest decision she’d ever made.



2016

Emerging from the van, her arms filled with blankets and silverware, Claire thinks, it would be so easy to stay here .

Autumn was just around the corner, and the evening air was crisp with the oncoming cold.  They had taken to spending their nights outside around a fire, wrapped in blankets, drinking beers and listening to the radio.

Owen was humming along to the one country station they could find while he started the fire.  His hair was still in disarray, tapping his foot to the rhythm.  Claire found herself watching the muscles in his arms as he worked.

Spotting her when he moved to turn up the radio volume, Owen smirked.  “Enjoying the view?”

Opting not to dignify that with a response, Claire dumped the blankets onto one of their camp chairs, then the silverware on the downed tree they were using as a makeshift table.  “I think I saw some chanterelles growing under the trees.  Want me to get some?”

Owen hummed, his brow furrowing in concentration.  “Do we still have butter and garlic?”

“Getting down there, but yes.”

“Then sure, they’ll be good seared.”

“Back soon, then.”  She takes a small knife off the table, rustles in the van for a bag and her headlamp, and then begins walking towards the oak trees she had seen earlier that day.  She isn’t the biggest fan of mushrooms, but Owen loved them, and she needed some time away from him, which wasn’t always easy to get when you spent all your time together in a van.

Claire needs to make a decision, soon.  She can feel it - a crossroads beneath her, both directions leading to something she wants, but either choice would mean leaving the other behind.

Despite how things had ended at the park, with Hoskins dead, InGen had tried enticing Owen to remain on staff, presumably to help them save face.  Eloquently, Owen had told them to go fuck themselves, tore them all a new one during the inquiry, and had used his significantly boosted final paycheck to retrofit a van.  He responded when Barry, Zach, or Gray texted and consulted with the Department of Fish and Wildlife when he felt like it, but otherwise blew off everyone and everything else.  Both Masrani Global and InGen had referred surviving staff to therapists, which Owen had also repeatedly blown off.  

For a while, Claire herself seemed to be the only exception.  The park was off limits these days, but it hadn’t always been that way.  Claire had leaned on Owen a lot during the initial inquiries after the incident, and in their early days, they’d sit on crappy hotel beds or in dive bars and reminisce, talk about what went wrong.  When Claire got too into her head, Owen would take her on rides down the coast on his motorcycle, or sit and watch bad reality TV with her in bed, eating take-out pizza and distracting her with kisses.  When Owen had asked her to come with him, spend some time on the road, she hadn’t hesitated.

A few months back, they’d spent one entire day on the beach.  Owen swam laps while Claire stretched out on a blanket in the shade, watching him.  He’d laughed at her hat and long-sleeved swim top, and then he’d coaxed her into the water, hat and all, tracking the freckles on her skin with his fingertips.  They’d stayed in the water for hours, alternating between racing each other (she knew Owen was holding back) and slow kisses until her skin was pruning.

When they’d gone to warm up, Claire against his chest, Owen stroking her arm like a treasure, she’d told him about her internship on the island.  It had been years since she’d mentioned it to anyone, except Masrani himself, and though she’d finished her story choked up, her guilt crashing into her again like the waves, there’d been relief, too.  Relief in the confession, but especially in the way Owen had reacted, horrified for her, assuring her, “No, Claire.  None of that was your fault.”


That night had been the beginning, she thinks, kneeling down gently in the grass, careful where she rested herself.  Once she had identified the patch she had seen, she pulled out her knife, carefully harvesting the mushrooms into the bag.

A dam had broken that night, one she’d kept locked away for so long, and the force of it was so strong she felt almost powerless against it.  As the days passed, she found herself thinking more about the park, about the animals she had a part of bringing into the world and had left behind.  She didn’t regret leaving the park after the incident, really, because Zach and Gray were more important than her own complicated feelings on Jurassic World, but she did feel as though she had unfinished business, and she’d never been good with that.

Owen, on the other hand, was becoming more closed off, shutting down when she talked about the park at all.  So despite the happiness they had found together, they’d been fighting more, lately, both desperate to regain the control they had seemingly lost, and it was becoming clear to Claire they were looking for it in very different ways.

Her job finished, Claire walked slowly back towards their campsite, a pit growing in her stomach.  She didn’t want to leave Owen.  She thought she might love him, though she didn’t let herself think it often.  

Despite everything, though, Owen couldn’t take away the guilt that was growing larger inside of her, day by day.  The weight of her culpability was crushing her, a black hole that was growing and would swallow her up.  

The fire was roaring when she returned, and Owen had added a flannel shirt and hat to his ensemble.  He had two potatoes wrapped in foil and cooking in the coals of their fire, the steak they’d had frozen searing in a pan.  It smelled wonderful, and Claire told herself the tears pricking at her eyes was a result of standing too close to the fire.



Two mornings later, Claire had their road atlas spread out on their makeshift table, pouring over the surrounding roads while she ate a stale pop tart, a coffee mug balanced between her knees, when she heard Owen’s footsteps behind her. 

He greeted her with a grunt and a shoulder squeeze before pouring himself coffee, collapsing into the chair beside her.  They sat in silence together, the morning slowly passing by, just as they had done for weeks.  

It felt wrong.  Claire hated that.

As the fire was starting to die, Owen gestured to the atlas and asked, “Time to move on?”

“Unless you have any objections.”

“Nah.” Owen stretched his arms above his head, shifting like he always did when he wanted to crack his back.  “Where are we going?”

Trying to curtail the catch in her breath, she suggested, “We could be in San Francisco in half a day.”

Scowling, Owen asked, “What would we go there for?”

“I was listening to NPR last night-”

“Ah, geez-”

“- and there was a story about Jurassic World -”

“Claire, I keep telling you to turn that shit off, it’s not worth it.”

“ Owen ,” she insists.  “This is…” She inhaled, trying to lower her voice.  “This vacation has been nice, but we can’t hide out in the woods forever.”

“Why not?  Because some jackass radio host said so?  Because InGen and Masrani Corp can’t leave us alone, still trying to exploit-”

“Because I can’t!” Claire cried, tears pricking her vision.  “Everything that I was a part of - I can’t just leave it.”

“Sure you can.  It’s easy.  We’ve been doing it for months.”

“I can’t keep doing it.  It’s not right.  And I know you agree with me.”

“I think you’re out of your mind, actually.  We both messed with something that should never have been messed with.  Done, end of story.”

“Don’t you care?  About Blue-”

“Don’t,” Owen hissed, and Claire knew she had crossed a line, knew how broken Owen still was over Blue, but she couldn’t stop herself.

You’re a coward, Claire, she thinks.  Easier to pick a fight than walk away, huh?

“How can you be okay with - moving on, like it never happened?”

“It did happen,” Owen pointed out.  “It happened.  We probably both should have died on that island, but we didn’t, yeah?” He gestures to their surroundings.  Dew on the grass, a light breeze rustling the trees, birds chirping in the distance.  It was beautiful, and Claire couldn’t stand it for another minute. “We move on, because it did happen, but there’s a lot more to life, Claire.”

“Oh sure,” Claire retorts, standing up, almost losing her balance in her haste.  “Beer around a campfire, throwing stones across ponds, rummaging for mushrooms, reading the same 3 books because we haven’t been to a library in weeks?”

Raising an eyebrow, Owen says, “Well, there’s the sex, too.”

She swallows, because, yes, but - “That’s enough for you.”

“Yup,” Owen tells her, mouth popping with emphasis on the ‘p’.  

“You know what?  You want to just live the rest of your life in a van like a bum?  Go ahead, Owen.”

Coward .  She wants him to call her bluff.  

He doesn’t.  “Okay.  I will.”



2022


She finds Maisie outside by the fire, sitting cross-legged on the flattened tree stump Owen had carved out for her four years ago, half-eaten piece of toast in her lap.  She’s idly poking the fire with a branch with one hand, her other curled around a mug.  Her own cup in her hand, blanket wrapped around her shoulders, she sits down on the log closest to Maisie.

She watches as Maisie sips from her own mug, making a face as she swallows.  Maisie doesn’t like drinking coffee black, but there hasn’t been another option this morning.  They’re going to have to face going into town sooner rather than later.  

Claire looks at Maisie in the light of day, an ache rising in her chest.  Miraculously, Maisie had made it out of Biosyn relatively unharmed, at least physically.  Her left hand and wrist would be sore for a while, and the EMT had let them know the cut on her hand would probably scar.  In contrast, Claire was aching this morning, and she knows the only reason Owen hadn’t followed her out already was his ribs.

Their physical injuries would heal, in time.  Claire wasn’t even particularly worried about herself, about Owen.  She had spent the entire drive to find Franklin terrified, despairing, thinking she had failed again.  She was struggling with that thought now.  Her and Owen had spent four years trying to keep Maisie safe, and -

And, what?  Could she really say it had been for nothing?  The circumstances were less than ideal, but Maisie knew the truth now about Charlotte.  Maisie knew she had been brought into the world out of love, and Claire couldn’t regret that part, at least.

She could regret the circumstances surrounding Maisie finding out that truth, and she did.  She wished Maisie hadn’t had to get hurt for this to happen.  After everything Maisie had gone through, she’d still had to suffer through this, and Claire knew it was partly her fault.  She probably could have done more to help Maisie, if she hadn’t let her fear grip her so tightly.

In Biosyn’s control room, Ellie had said, “if we hold on to regret, we stay in the past.”  If she had heard those same words even a few years ago, she doesn’t think she would have understood them.  She does, now, and all she could hope was that Maisie would forgive her, in time.

That probably started with Claire being truthful with her.  Maisie had been right about that.  

“Thank you for starting the coffee,” Claire says finally.  “Have you been up long?”

In response, Maisie only shrugged.  “A while.”

Her nightmares hadn’t started immediately in the aftermath of the Lockwood Manor incident.  It had been a few days later, and at the time, Maisie had really only wanted Owen.  Seeing the videos of him training Blue had been enough for her to decide she trusted him, and there were a few nights she had woken up crying, begging Owen not to leave her alone.

Eventually, she’d stopped asking for either of them.  The nightmares would still come, though, and Claire had been the one to convince her it was nothing to be ashamed of, that she and Owen had them too.  

“You know you can always wake me if you need something, right?”

“I know,” Maisie says with a small smile.  “Thanks.”

“Are you doing alright?  How’s your hand this morning?”

“I’m okay.”  Maisie turns her hand over, looking at her bandages.  “Did you hear the EMT saying it might scar?”

“I did.”

“I kind of hope it does,” Maisie admits.  “That would be cool.”

“Be careful what you wish for, kid.”  Owen is walking slowly, and when he reaches them, he grunts as he sits down, wincing.

Claire reaches out and rests her hand on Owen’s knee.  “Did you take anything this morning?”

Owen uncurls his hand, revealing the ibuprofen pills.  “I’ll get there.”  To Maisie, he says, “Sorry, kid.  I know you hate drinking it black.”

“It’s foul,” Maisie complains.

“You’re still drinking it.”

“Take your pills,” Maisie says.  Claire laughs, and Owen tips his cup at Maisie before following her orders.

“Any movement this morning?” Owen gestures towards the forest.

Maisie shakes her head.  “Haven’t seen anything.”

Owen nods, seemingly satisfied.  They didn’t expect to see Blue or Beta around for a while, after the recent ordeal.  Still, Claire knew Owen had complicated feelings about it.  There was always a risk to them when Blue approached, but he worried when too much time passed without any sign of her.  Her presence in the mountains hadn’t been a secret, exactly, but it would be even more public now.

“Are they going to be alright now?” Maisie asked, staring off into the woods.

“I sure hope so.” Owen says.  “We’ll keep an eye on ‘em.”

“We will?” Maisie asks, her voice full of hope.

“Yeah,” Owen says, eyes meeting Claire’s briefly.  She gives him the faintest of nods in response.  “Beta seems to trust you, and I could use your help.”

Maisie smiles, but it fades when she asks, “What about the rest of the dinosaurs?  The ones still in the Dolomites?”

“I don’t know,” Owen tells her honestly, “but we’ll probably all find out together.”

Maisie turns to Claire.  “What do you think?”

Claire’s finger was tracing the lid of her coffee cup.  Instead of answering Maisie’s question, she says, “Maisie, I have something I want to tell you.”

“What is it?”

“Why I started working at Jurassic World.”

Startled, Maisie’s eyes go wide in disbelief.  “Really?”

Maisie had asked the question before, in the first few weeks after the incident at Lockwood Manor, when she’d spent much of her time eagerly asking Owen all he knew about Blue and training raptors and everything she could about the park, somewhere she had always dreamed of going.  Claire had carefully dodged the question, only ever telling her that it was something she had been excited to be a part of.

Maisie had asked one more time, almost a year later, but Claire had dodged the question then, too.  Claire had been well aware Maisie knew she was avoiding the question, just as Maisie must have known there was a reason, and she’d never asked again.

“Yes.  You should know.”

If Owen was surprised, he didn’t show it.  When she looked at him, his eyes were fixed on her, but he was smiling, and he gave her a quick wink.  Claire smiled back, and then focused on Maisie.  “Listen, some of this is classified.”  Owen snorts, and she clarifies, “Alright, all of it is.  But I think you can keep a secret.”

“Can he?” Maisie teases.

“Owen knows the story already.”  Claire takes a deep breath and tells Maisie the story of Bright Minds.  There are certain details she leaves out, not because Maisie couldn’t handle it, but because she isn’t sure that she can.  But she does talk about the raptor escape.  She talks about spending 10 years of her life trying to make up for one summer, and how 10 years came crashing down in a single day, with the Indominus.

“All of that happened in one summer?” Maisie asks, wide-eyed.  “But you stayed.”

Claire kicks the ground with her boot.  “I wanted to believe in what Masrani was trying to build.  I wanted us to coexist.  I didn’t make all the right decisions, though.”  She swallows tightly.  “Most of them were wrong, but I was doing the best I could.  Or that’s what I thought.  I’ve spent so much time trying to make things right.”

She pauses, again, and Owen reaches out, squeezing her shoulder in support.

“I’m still trying to make things right.  Maisie, Owen and I… spending the last four years hiding you away was… I can’t imagine how difficult it’s been for you, to have your choices taken away.  To feel like you were being punished without doing anything wrong.  I’m sorry, sweetheart, I really am.  I can’t change the decisions we made.  Looking back, I’m not sure I can say I wish I had done anything different, Maisie, because all I want is for you to be safe.  We didn’t know any other way to do that.  I am sorry that we couldn’t be better for you.  I’m sorry-”  

Claire’s interrupted when Maisie rushes to her, throwing her arms around her in a tight hug.  “It’s okay, Claire,” Maisie says, and Claire feels tears well up in her eyes when she realizes Maisie is crying.  “Anyway, I should be the one apologizing for being so horrible to you-”

“You weren’t horrible,” Claire refutes, wrapping her arms tighter around Maisie.  “I know it’s been tough for you.”

“Yes, but,” Maisie tucks her head into Claire’s shoulder, just for a moment, before stepping out of her arms, wiping at her eyes.  “I was horrible.  I think I understand better now.  If I hadn’t gone, I wouldn’t know what I do now about Charlotte.  I’m not sorry about that.”

“I’m not either,” Claire tells her.

“But I am sorry for worrying you,” Maisie says, glancing over to Owen when she adds, “Both of you.  And I’m… I’m really glad you came to get me.”

Claire reaches out to squeeze her hand.  “We’re always going to be there for you.  Always.”

“I know.”  Instead of moving back to the log, Maisie sat cross-legged on the ground next to Claire.  “Um.. what’s going to happen to me now?”

There’s a spark of fear flaring inside Claire she has to control.  Before she can answer, Owen does.  “I think a lot of that is up to you, kid.”

“It is?”

“Sure,” Owen assures.  “It’s your life.  Anyway, seeing as we don’t need to hide you anymore, seems like we have a whole lot of options.”

“Like what?” Maisie asks.  Claire wonders if she’s overwhelmed.

“School, for one thing.”

Maisie perks up, her face breaking into a grin.  “I can go to school?  A real one?”

“If you want to,” Claire says.   “Of course.”

“Oh, um - “ Maisie looks briefly uncomfortable, but Claire, laughing, assures her, “I’m not offended, Maisie.  I’m not a teacher.”

“You did alright,” Maisie says, though she isn’t very convincing.  Claire appreciates the effort anyway.  “Will I go to school around here?”

Claire and Owen looked at each other again.  “I think the three of us need to talk about that.  As a family.  If you want?”

Maisie shifts so she is sitting between them, looking up at both of them with so much certainty.  “You know what I think?”

“What’s that?” Owen asks, reaching over to tousle her hair.

“I wish I had known Charlotte,” Maisie says, “and now I know there are recordings of her, and I can see them, and I want to see them all .”

“We’ll make sure you can,” Claire promises, but Maisie continues, seemingly annoyed that she had been cut off.  “I really loved my grandfather, but my whole life, I wished I had real parents, you know?  And you two chose me, and I think that’s pretty cool.”

Claire doesn’t even bother trying to stop the tears building in her eyes.  Owen, squeezing her hand, tells Maisie, “We love you too, kid.”

Tugging on Claire’s hand, Maisie says, “You trusted me.  With Henry.”

“It was never you I didn’t trust, Maisie.  It was myself.  I hope you can forgive me for that.  I’ll try harder, okay?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Maisie says, wiping at her eyes.  When Maisie clearly wants to change the subject, Claire decides to let her.  They have time, after all.  Maisie asks, “Can we go on a family trip somewhere?  Can we go see the Smithsonian?  Oh, and a real baseball game?”

Chuckling, Owen says, “Only if it’s a Cardinals game.”

Mock-outraged, Claire jabs a finger at him.  “Don’t let Karen hear you say that.  She’ll never let you in the house again.”

“Now, I know that isn’t true.  She did say she owes me for life.”

“You say that to her face and see how it works out.”

“She didn’t include a stipulation about baseball!”

“Hey,” Maisie interrupts, “but can we?”

“Ah, not right away,” Claire says. “I think it’s going to take a while for the Biosyn incident to settle down.  But sure, Maisie.  There’s so much beauty in this world.  I want you to see all of it.”

Standing up, Maisie wraps Claire in another hug.  “Thanks, Mom,” she whispers in her ear.  Just as quickly, she hugs Owen, too.  “Thanks, Dad.”




Deciding they’d put off buying new phones for one more day, consequences be damned, they’d spent a quiet day together at the cabin, venturing into town for only groceries.  For the most part, they had been ignored, except for the convenience store clerk, who largely gossiped about anyone and anything.  It was a perk they’d enjoyed for four years, but Claire knew that time was coming to an end.  It didn’t scare her as much as it should have.  Despite everything, this quiet town was largely unchanging, and it brought Claire more comfort than she had anticipated.

After dinner that night, Owen and Maisie had become engaged in a rather cutthroat game of Gin Rummy, and so Claire had left them to it, curling up on the couch next to the fireplace, watching her family, her fingers drumming on her thigh.

Her thoughts are interrupted by a shriek of laughter.  “I taught you too well,” Owen groans, tossing his hand of cards haphazardly on the table.

“If that’s what you need to tell yourself,” Maisie responds, laughing.  “Loser cleans up, remember?”

“I never agreed to that!” Owen chirps, but he’s grinning, already cleaning up the cards and shooing Maisie away when she tries to help.  Maisie pokes her head around the corner.  “I’m going to go to bed.  Do you need me to lock up?”

“We’ll get it,” Claire tells her.  “Do you have enough blankets?  It’s supposed to get pretty cold tonight.”

“I’ve got enough.”

“Owen, did you fix the lock on her window?”

“I’m fine, stop fussing,” Maisie insists.

She never will.  Maisie probably knows that.  “All right, then.  Good night, Maisie.”

“Good night, Claire.”

After tidying up the table and turning down the lights, Owen joins Claire on the couch, carrying two bottles of water.  Claire raised the blankets on her lap, making room for Owen, tucking herself against his side.  Resting his hand on her side, Owen leaned his head back against the couch.  “That kid’s a menace.”

“Maybe you’re just not as good at cards as you’d like to believe.”

Owen snorts, dropping a kiss into Claire’s hair.  “You’ve been quiet today.  I can hear the wheels turning in your head.  You already have a plan, don’t you?”

Claire had been thinking about the past four years of her life, chaotic and unpredictable and wonderful as it had been.  Her closest neighbors were two raptors, she had driven the roads from Sierra Nevada to San Francisco so many times she could picture every turn, every sign, every tree marking the shift from the mountains to the city, and sometimes she did, when sleep eluded her.  She had a daughter she’d never planned on, who was smart and funny and who loved animals so much it made Claire’s heart swell.  She had Owen, loyal and steadfast, who made her feel more safe than she ever thought she could.  She had Karen and Zach and Gray, and resolved to herself that she’d visit them sooner rather than later.

She thought of a night six years ago when she’d harvested mushrooms in the forest and thought that, once again, she had found something she wanted but could never have.  

“Claire?”

Claire blinked, then tilted her head up, smiling.  “We should get married.”

Owen chokes, water trickling out of his mouth.  Laughing, Claire pulled the bottle out of Owen’s hand before he could crush it, placing it on the floor.

Wiping his face with his sleeve, Owen says, “Jesus, Claire.”

“You asked!”

Owen looks at her, eyes searching.  Then, he squeezes her hand, kisses her nose, and says, “Wait here a moment.”

Gently shifting her off of him, he hurries towards their bedroom, and only a few moments pass before he returns, settling back next to her.  It’s then Claire notices the small box Owen is holding, his eyes twinkling.

For a moment, she thinks she’s imagining things.  “What?”

Owen opens the box, revealing the ring inside, and says, “Alright, let’s get married.”

“When -”  Claire looks between the ring and Owen.  “When did you get a ring?!”

“Eh, I’ve had it for a while,” Owen says nonchalantly.  “Do you want it or not?”

“Yes, I want it,” Claire tells him, chin high even as tears begin to prickle behind her eyes.  She lets Owen slide the ring onto her finger, staring at it in bewilderment for a few moments before kissing him, sliding one leg over his, gripping tightly onto his shirt.  “I love you,” she says, mouth against his jaw.

“I love you,” Owen responds, voice suspiciously thick as he rests his head against hers.  “This was your plan, huh?”

“Yes.”

He kisses her again, slow, deep, his hand tightening on her hip.  “Claire.”

“Alright,” she confesses, mouth against his lips, “I have some thoughts on how the DPG can advocate for the dinosaurs left in the Dolomites.”

“Uh-huh,” Owen says, kissing down her throat.

“Also, I want to go to Wisconsin.”

“I’m not going to a Brewers game.”

“I want to see Karen and the boys, you ass, this isn’t about baseball.”

“So, Missouri for the honeymoon?”

Claire snorts, tugging gently on his hair.  “No board shorts.”

Owen barks a laugh.  “That’s still where you draw the line, is it?  Here I thought I’d changed your mind.”

He’d changed her mind about a lot of things, actually, though the board shorts weren’t among them.  Resting her head against his, Claire says, “You know what I’ve learned over the past four years?”

“I know it hasn’t been how to make popcorn, because you still burn it.”

“Owen, be serious.”

“Alright, sorry,” he says, laughing, pressing a kiss to her nose.  “What?”

“I had to slow down before I saw anything clearly,” Claire says.  She knows she isn’t making any sense, and so she adds, “I was so focused on one thing for years , Owen.  Over a decade.  When I was working at Jurassic World, and even after the incident.  It was selfish, I know that now - I told myself I was doing what I had to do to keep everyone safe, but I spent so long focused only absolving myself, and I couldn’t see the forest for the trees.  It’s the last four years that have changed that.  You and Maisie changed that, you know?  I had to learn to let go, and once I did... You and Maisie are my family, and I never knew how wonderful it could be until it happened.  I’ve been telling Maisie it’s okay to depend on each other, and I had to learn that the hard way.  But I did, and I love you, and we don’t need to be married to be a family, but I want to be.  So…”

“Claire, I had a ring,” Owen says gently.  “I was just waiting for you to be ready.”

“What if I never was?”

“Well, I love you.  I would have been okay with that, as long as I have you.  I’m happy you asked, though.”

“Me too.”  Claire kisses him again, and Owen pulls her in close, holding her tight.  Despite everything that was coming, she felt more settled, more sure now than ever.  She couldn’t regret what had brought Owen and Maisie to her, and she thought she finally understood what she was meant for.

Her life was nothing like the one she had planned for herself almost twenty years ago.  It was more messy, more chaotic, more unpredictable.

It was full, and wonderful, and even better than she could have hoped for.