A/N: I don't know where I was going with this story, this happened. I haven't written in eons so I'm not really sure how I did, but hopefully it was okay.
Hope you like it!
Claire doesn't deserve someone like Owen. Someone who makes her feel like she's the only person in this messed up world that matters. Someone who holds her every night when she wakes up screaming from her nightmares and whispers to her over and over again that it's not her fault as her breathing slowly goes back to normal.
And yet here she is, sitting on their couch as he gets her a mug of warm water to calm her down after she's had yet another round of nightmares.
It's been almost a year since the incident and Claire is no closer to forgiving herself now than she was the day it happened. Her nightmares are no longer a nightly thing but when she does have them, she's overcome with waves of guilt and gets pulled back into the events of that day all over again.
She feels the couch dip from his weight as Owen walks over and wordlessly hands her the mug before sitting down next to her.
"Thanks," she murmurs. She refuses to meet his eyes. She knew he would be looking at her with that look. That look that was filled with so much care and love it makes her throat constrict and her chest tighten.
No matter how many times Owen told her otherwise, Claire blamed herself for the incident. She was the reason all those dinosaurs were dead, the reason the indominus rex had gotten loose. She was the one who caused so many people to die.
Her job had been to make sure people wanted to come to Jurassic World, to stun the audience. They were supposed to be so in awe of the place that they couldn't wait to book another trip back there. Above all though, her responsibility had been to keep them safe. And she had failed.
She, along with everyone else, had been too focused on the money. Too busy playing God. They had succeeded where Hammond had failed. They had brought his dream to life and they could control it.
They could do everything now.
And everything had to be perfect. So as people gradually lost interest, they simply brought in something new. The dinosaurs kept getting bigger. Fiercer. Scarier. And that method had worked until reality set in. They had created something too big and too fierce. It had taken control and destroyed the park.
She hadn't always been so caught up in the business side of it though. When Claire had first gotten the job, she too had stood in wonderment of the park just like all the tourists flocking in did. She was just as stunned by the sheer size and power of these animals. But as she moved up, the awe was buried under the piles of paperwork, phone calls and meetings.
There was no time to step back and be amazed. There would be nothing left to be amazed at if she paused for even a second.
She had poured all her time into the job, pushing away everyone and everything that could distract her. She didn't have many friends as a result and her family life was practically nonexistent. But she didn't care. She had worked too long and too hard to be pulled down because she had gotten distracted. Sure she became cold and distant, but she was at the top. She didn't care.
Then Owen showed up.
He was different from everyone else.
Unlike everyone around him, he didn't talk to her like she scared the living crap out of him. He joked around and flirted with her even, something no one had dared to do since she had gotten this job.
He treated the dinosaurs differently. He talked to them or more specifically, his raptors, as if they could understand him. And in some weird way, it seemed that they really could. They had some weird form of communication between them that no one else could understand except for maybe Barry.
He always seemed to be in wonder of the raptors like he was seeing them for the first time. He never used anything but his voice and that clicker of his on them. He talked to them in a firm voice when they didn't listen to him, but not once did he ever raise his voice. It was nothing like she had ever seen.
When she asked him why he didn't use anything else to control them he simply said, "It's a relationship, Claire. We respect each other." It didn't make any sense to her, but he was doing his job so she had left him alone.
Then he asked her out. She didn't know why she had said yes, but she had against her better judgement. Maybe it was because he was the only who hadn't seemed scared shitless of her when she turned her stern gaze on them. Or maybe it was because he was the only who had managed to coax a few occasional, genuine smiles out of her for the first time in years.
The date went nothing like either of expected. He walked in wearing board shorts. She acted like she was at a business meeting, bringing out the itinerary she had made as she talked. He kept asking her, what seemed to her, nosy questions. It was to be expected she supposed. After all, that is what people were supposed to do on a date. But she hadn't been on a date since she was in college and to be honest, she didn't even know how to answer half of his questions.
She didn't know what she did during her free time because she didn't have any or when she did, she used it to get a head start on her work. She never watched anything on TV other than the news so she had no favorite shows. She didn't listen to music all that often so she didn't know who her favorite artist was.
Everything they said turned into an argument. He said her answers were "too boring" and she yelled at him for being an inconsiderate asshole. She thought he spent too much time having fun, he thought she needed to loosen up. So in the end they decided to just give up.
It could have gone a lot worse, but it didn't matter. Claire did not want another date with Owen Grady. Not that this should have come as any surprise to her. He was definitely not the type of guy she typically dated even in when she hadn't been so caught up with work.
So what if he could make her laugh? Who cares if she got a few butterflies when he was around? What could she possibly want with a guy like him? She didn't need him. Over time she was even able to convince herself that she didn't care about him.
Then the indominus had escaped and she was gripped with a terror like she'd never known. No matter how much she had convinced herself that she didn't care for him anymore, the thought of him dying made her sick to her stomach.
When he stormed into the control room alive and breathing, she couldn't help the involuntary sigh that escaped her lips. She had been so sure he'd met his doom back in paddock 11. But he was here in the room talking in that annoying, know-it-all voice of his.
Then he was arguing with her and it was all she could to hold it together and he stormed out. She felt like such a God awful person, but she had quickly pushed him out of her mind. She couldn't allow herself to get distracted at a time like this.
Even as she was begging him to help find her nephews and running through the jungle with a dinosaur hybrid on the loose, she distanced herself from him.
And then he kissed her. It was an adrenaline fueled thing. He hadn't known what else to do after she had just saved his ass, but it had been enough to cause all the small feelings Claire had felt for him to resurface.
When he went after the indominus with his raptors, she felt that same feeling of terror from that morning grip her again. Only this time she would be watching if he died.
Then, it was all over. The indominus was dead. Her nephews were alive. She was alive. Owen was alive. Everything had happened so quickly and yet it felt like days had passed.
"We should probably stick together…for survival," he said to her. Her heart had soared when she heard his words and a small smile had graced her lips against her will as she followed him out of the makeshift hospital. She'd felt safe for the first time that day until she realized that it wasn't right.
She couldn't have him. She was a murderer and a lone wolf. She's stern. She's cold. She's calculating. She's pushed so many people away she barely knows what it means to be human anymore. She's drifted too far from humanity to deserve him.
He simply smiled and laced their fingers together when she told him she was no good at this.
Now they're living together and she found herself waking up with his arm around her waist and kissing him goodbye as they leave for work. She was there for him when he got lost in his panic attacks and he was there to tear her away from the grip of her nightmares.
"Claire, look at me." Owen's gentle voice pulls her out of her thoughts. "It wasn't your fault."
Claire swallows before slowly bringing her eyes up to meet Owen's. "People died that day," she starts, voice slightly hoarse.
"Claire-" he doesn't get a chance to finish when she stands up and whirls around to face him.
Her piercing green eyes bore into his as she speaks. "People died, Owen. People with families died. They're dead and it's my fault their dead. I should have made sure that thing wasn't in there before letting you go in. I should have called control to track her before you went in."
Owen stands up and slowly walks towards her, but she just steps back.
"You almost died that day, Owen." She's breathing heavily now, desperately trying to hold the tears back.
He slowly reaches out and gently grabs her arm. "But I didn't," he says, looking her straight in the eye. "I'm here. You're here. We're here, we're both alive." He rubs soothing circles into her arms with his thumbs. "It wasn't your fault, Claire," he repeats.
Claire looks at him, clenching her jaw. She desperately wants to believe him. Wants to believe that she didn't have anything to do with it. But she can't. She was the one who had told Wu to create something bigger. Something louder with more teeth.
She pulls away from him, "No." Her heart starts racing again. "No, people are dead because I told them to make it. I-"
"You didn't make the dinosaur," Owen cuts in. "You did your job and Wu gave you more than you bargained for."
"I still told him to do it though," she says in a low voice.
"It was everyone's fault. We all forgot that we are not control of everything, even if we are the ones who created it. You're not responsible for everything." Owen looks her, trying to convey everything he was saying to her with his eyes.
Claire swallows as she takes in his words and the look in his eyes. Her breathing gradually starts returning to normal. She stops trying to talk and studies the floor as the meaning of his words process in her mind.
Owen carefully walks over and wraps his arms around her. Claire stands there stiffly for a few seconds before shakily bringing her arms around his waist and melting into his embrace.
There's still a nagging voice in her head telling her that she doesn't deserve to have him holding her like that. She should not have the comfort of his words calming her thoughts. She had chosen to push people away, why should she be allowed to have the one good thing that's happened to her? Why should she be allowed to be with Owen?
But as Owen presses a kiss to her forehead and gently starts to lead her back to bed, Claire pushes the voice out of her head.
They crawl back into bed and Claire feels him wrap an arm securely around her waist before she slowly drifts off to sleep again.