Imagine spending all that money to go to Jurassic World in Costa Rica when literally four years later, you can wake up to seeing a dinosaur from your front porch.
Claire goes through the events of Dominion with a secret weighing heavy on her heart.
yes well… here we are. post dominion. life ruined, as we knew it would be. enjoy my brain rot. don’t know how i’ve never written for them before.
CONTAINS JW: DOMINION SPOILERS
There’s a moment. When Blue is looking between her and Owen, there’s a moment.
She’s not used to this, sharing stolen glances with a fucking dinosaur, but she clocks the moment Blue’s eyes go from her face to her stomach.
Before she can truly process it the raptor is gone again and Claire has only herself to carry her secret now.
+
She has a plan to tell him around the fire pit after Maisie has gone to bed. She’ll make him a s’more, snuggle in close, and whisper the words to him.
The thought is cliche, a little cheesy, but she figures some normalcy is needed.
She does not get normalcy.
(When has she ever?)
When Owen comes back and tells her that Maisie is gone she almost throws up.
Instead she swallows back the bile rising in her throat, lets Owen run out the front door, and takes a moment for herself. Her eyes shut and she places one hand against her still taught stomach.
“It’s going to be okay, everything will be okay.”
+
Everything is not okay.
Maisie is gone and they’re on a plane to France for some god forsaken reason.
As she sits, stomach churning with the minor turbulence and anxiety and what she assumes is the beginnings of morning sickness, she’s overcome with the want to tell Owen.
They don’t keep secrets, not anymore.
Not after what they’ve been through.
But this?
Claire’s eyes watch the clouds passing by and she feels Owen’s hand cover hers.
They’re crossing international borders to rescue their pseudo daughter. There will be peril and injuries and near death incidents and…
And dinosaurs.
There will definitely be dinosaurs.
She’s throwing up into the motion sickness bag as visions of a humid junglescape and her nephews and fire cloud her vision.
Owen’s hand is immediately on her back, rubbing small circles as she continues to hurl the meager breakfast she had this morning into the bag.
“It’s okay, we’re gonna find her.”
Claire is thankful, if just for a moment, that Owen doesn’t see through her.
+
The black market scares her.
It’s not the people that scare her, it’s the dinosaurs.
(It’s just the beginning, she will later realize.)
Each time one of them looks at her, turns their head sideways or stares at her a moment too long, she has to fight the urge to jump behind Owen. To whisper to him her secret, to beg him to protect her.
Now is not the time for her to be selfish though, not when Maisie is on the line.
Not when her daughter, very real and larger than a poppy seed, is on the line.
(She makes a deal with herself then. If she is going to bargain her children's lives, Maisie is her first priority.)
She doesn’t vomit until Owen has left with Barry and she has a moment to herself.
She will make it through this trip.
Owen will make it through this trip.
Maisie will make it through this trip.
Her hand splays across her stomach.
You too. You’ll make it too.
+
In the back of the pickup truck, as Kayla navigates them through the city, she prays.
Claire Dearing has never prayed before.
+
She watches Owen drive the motorcycle down the runway and she hopes against all hope that he will be there.
She hopes he will once again hold Maisie to his chest as they laugh around the fire pit.
She hopes he will be there to critique her cooking skills, as he usually does.
She hopes that he will hold their child and rock them to sleep.
When she’s in his arms again, she can’t help
the tears that wet his shirt as he holds them both upright, his lips pressing against her hair.
+
“You have to be the one to get her. You’re her mom.”
The words still Claire, her tears stopping if only for a moment.
Tell him.
She meets Owen's eyes and she almost does it, almost pushes the words out.
I’m pregnant.
She doesn’t know if the words will stop him or push him harder to let her go. Blue against green, the way he looks at her tells her everything she needs to know.
Three years ago he would’ve left it at that. But this was not three years ago.
“I’ll see you again. I love ya.”
He steps back.
She closes her eyes.
Say it!
She opens her eyes, meeting his. He’s confused, waiting for her to go.
Claire isn’t sure if they’ll both survive this, so she takes her chance.
“Owen, I’m pregnant.”
She presses the button.
His blank expression is the last thing she sees.
+
She thinks of Blue as she crawls across the ground, quick and quiet breaths leaving her as she tries not to attract the attention of the dinosaur above her.
Outside the cabin Blue had a look in her eyes that Claire had never seen before. While she wasn’t as in tune with the raptor as Owen, she knew the look meant something, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.
Now, she knew she wore the same expression.
Fear. Love. Protectiveness.
She knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that the baby in her womb would not have anything to worry about.
She wouldn’t let them.
Owen wouldn’t let them.
She thinks of Owen as she sinks beneath the water, one hand pressed to her stomach as she wishes for his presence.
+
She’s going to die.
These damn giant lizards are going to kill her.
Her mind flashes back to Simon Masrani and the day she accepted his job offer to help open a brand new theme park.
While she knows that she wouldn’t take it back, her family having haphazardly been pieced together because of her job at Jurassic World, she wonders if she would feel at peace had she not accepted.
She wonders how many times she would’ve feared for her life had she not accepted.
(It’s a low number, much lower than her current count.)
There’s a squeal and she can no longer feel the hot breath of the dinosaur above her.
She doesn’t think she even opens her eyes as she throws herself into Owens arms, sobs escaping her.
“It’s okay, I got you.”
His hand slips to her stomach and she lets out another sob as he supports her full weight.
“I got you.”
The words are heavier now.
+
They don’t have time to talk, they’re still in a forest full of fucking dinosaurs and their daughter is still missing.
She fights back the urge to vomit.
+
Her and Owen watch the car, a sense of dread and urgency floating between them. They don’t know if the occupants are friends or foes.
Then she hears the screams.
The screams she hears past midnight that tell her that Maisie has woken up from another nightmare.
(She wonders if hers sound the same, but never dates to ask Owen.)
She’s running towards the vehicle before Owen can stop her, his protests sounding out behind her.
And then Maisie is in her arms.
Claire can’t tell you the last time she cried this much.
(Isla Nublar, 2015)
She holds Maisie to her chest as Owen wraps both of them in his arms. For a second she can forget about the dinosaurs and the fire and the anxiety coursing through her chest.
For a second, things are normal.
+
She can see the panic in Owen's eyes as she gets dragged out the broken window.
She’s seen a variety of scared, worried, and shocked expressions on his face through the years.
Not this.
This is terrified.
This is survival mode.
She lets him hold her close when he finally frees her.
+
He barely lets her leave his sight. In fact his eyes haven’t left her since they reunited.
They haven’t had a chance to talk but his eyes say everything.
He doesn’t want her to go alone, not when there are so many threats looming above them.
Not when she carries their secret beneath her trembling hands.
It’s only when Doctor Sattler volunteers to come with her that his shoulders relax.
Before she leaves he pulls her in, lips pressed to her forehead. He takes a deep breath and she knows their embrace is more for his benefit than hers.
“Come back.”
We won’t survive if you don’t.
He meets her eyes.
“I always come back.”
I’m not leaving you. Either of you. All three of you. Ever.
+
She doesn’t mean to tell Ellie.
And, she reasons, she never did actually tell her.
As soon as the locusts begin to swarm Claire’s hand falls to her stomach and she drops to the floor. She watches Ellie fight off the locusts and is thankful to her.
They get the ADS online and exit the room.
Claire vomits in the hallway.
“You’ve got nerves of steel.”
Claire’s eyes dart up to Ellie from her bent over position.
“I don’t think my heart could take being in your position. Not here.”
Not in this hell scape.
+
The door to the helicopter closes shut and Claire feels herself breathe, well and truly breathe, for the first time in almost three days.
Maisie is in front of her and Owen is to her left.
Her family is safe.
Owen’s arm wraps around her shoulders and he pulls her against his chest.
His hand wanders down, pressing against where their child lay completely unaware of the chaos they’d just survived.
+
“Claire, what in the damn hell were you thinking?”
They’ve been home for two hours, Maisie collapsing into bed from exhaustion not even ten minutes earlier. Her snores echo through the small cabin as Claire sets about making a cup of tea.
“Owen please-“
“You could’ve died! You went out there, knowing you were-“
“I did what I had to do!”
“You put yourself at risk and that baby and-“
“I had to save our daughter! I couldn’t not save her!”
They stand across from each other, both with watery eyes. Claire’s chest is heaving and Owen is trying his best to keep his tears from falling.
“I couldn’t let you go alone, I couldn’t just… I couldn’t just sit here. So I’m sorry but-“
He doesn’t let her finish, his arms around her shoulders as she sobs. She thinks he knows that this was harder on her than him, knows that the past few days have worn her down.
So while his heart might be hurting, he pushes it aside to hold her and help her own bleeding heart.
“You’re here now, that’s all that matters.”
+
Liam James Grady’s first breath entails a scream that would envy any velociraptor late the next spring.
Claire could almost laugh if Owen wasn’t clicking his tongue and moving his hands to attract the newborns attention.
“C’mon Claire, how different is a baby and a velociraptor anyways?”
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