Okay, so this idea came to me last week, and I've never explored and JW / preJW era stuff so I thought, hey, why not. I haven't actually used Tinder myself so if the app explanation isn't quite correct, shrug, oh well. :P

Thanks, as always, to EliseCollier for her beta work and support.

Swipe Right

"I'm just saying–"

"I know what you're saying, Zara," Claire groaned as the two entered her office. "You've been saying it for months now."

"Which is just proving my point." Zara smiled when Claire rolled her eyes at her. "I'm not saying you need to jump into a serious relationship or anything. What about a fling?"

"A fling?" Claire walked around her desk, flopping down into her chair and staring at her assistant with disbelief. Did she not know her at all?

"Why not?" Zara challenged back.

"Because pretty much every single male around here within ten years of me is my employee," Claire grimaced. "No thanks."

"Who says you need to look at an employee?" Zara disagreed. "There's twenty thousand other people on this island every day. Surely one of them is on something like Tinder. Even better, they'll be gone the next day, or at most a few days later. No worries about them following you around or having to deal with them after."

"Really, Zara?"

"Come on. You can't tell me you weren't checking out that guy on Main Street when we were grabbing our lunches."

"The guy who spilled his entire soda on his shirt?" Claire opened up her laptop, ready for the conversation to be over. "Everyone was looking at him."

"Seriously, Claire, think about it," Zara suggested again, before turning on her heel to head back to her desk. She paused in the doorway to look back at her boss and friend. "It'd do you some good."

"Go away," Claire laughed, shooing her away with her hand.

As Zara left, Claire pulled her lunch towards her, opening up the box and pulling out half her sandwich. Turning back to her laptop, she looked at her phone, resting on the desk. After taking a bite, she carefully put the sandwich down again and tugged her phone over. She pulled up the app store and, with a cringe, searched for dating apps. The multitude of results shouldn't have shocked her, but they did. How did anyone ever choose how to proceed?

Placing her phone back down and pulling her laptop to her, she picked up her sandwich, ready to dive back into her emails and see if she couldn't clear a few out before her afternoon meeting.

When she found herself reading the same email for the third time, Claire sighed and picked up her phone again. She supposed it wouldn't hurt to just take a look at one of them. Looking at the results again, she landed on Tinder. Zara had mentioned it, after all. Being well, who she was, she used her laptop to do some quick research. It sounded simple enough – she would see people nearby. If she "liked" someone, she could swipe right or tap yes. And if they both happen to like each other, then they'd be connected. If not, well, they never had to know she'd swiped in the first place. And, Zara was right – with the constantly changing population on Nublar, they'd be gone within days anyway. Grabbing her phone again, she took another bite of her sandwich as she waited for it to install.

Setting up her account turned out to be pretty easy, even if she did agonize for a few minutes over what pictures to share. She didn't really take selfies, and it turned out most of the recent pictures she had of herself were from doing promotional activities for Jurassic World. Not really the vibe she wanted to give off. Eventually, digging around on Facebook (which she did not link – like she wanted Zara to know she'd actually signed up), she managed to find one that Zara had posted not to long ago that came across as a candid. She had her sunglasses pushed up on her head and was standing by the Gentle Giants paddock. She decided it was also a good choice because she looked like just another tourist.

Once she finally made it through the process, her screen filled with pictures of all the people who matched her criteria. She had decided to try to stay pretty general and limited it mainly by age. Tapping on the first one, she was a bit horrified by what she saw, a guy standing with his arm wrapped around a dead lion (which she knew was dead, because it's head was hanging limply). Was this supposed to be attractive? She swiped left without a second thought, and flipped to the next one. She found herself swiping left a lot. She supposed she should be surprised, except she wasn't. She had always had high standards in all areas of her life. Karen had once commented that she wasn't sure that even she lived up to them, which Claire had then had to spend time reassuring her that, yes, she met them (all while rolling her eyes behind Karen's back).

She finally stopped on one image, a guy who was actually decent looking, and not posing with anything odd or dead. Flipping over to his short description, she groaned when she saw he mentioned working at Jurassic World. Sorting through her memory and trying to place the name, and then cheating and using the personnel database, she finally determined he was one of the new ACU recruits. That was a big nope right there.

It was starting to feel hopeless. She told herself to look at five more before giving up. It was always just a shot in the dark anyway. She swiped left on the next three in quick succession. She had her finger poised to do the same on the fourth when the image stopped her. Owen? Owen Grady? Raptor trainer and ladies' man, Owen? He used Tinder? She had heard rumours that he was a fan of one-night stands. She supposed he was using Tinder exactly as she was, could she really judge him for that? Yes, her brain supplied quickly, she could and she would. She couldn't help it, judgement flowing through her at the sight of his picture on the app.

She flipped through the few shots he'd shared, before jumping over to his profile to see what description he'd given himself. No surprise, there was just a single sentence that really meant nothing – "I like to have fun." Not that people wouldn't figure that out from the pictures he'd shared. He was on his motorcycle on one, sipping a beer while hanging out in a hammock in the second, and the third showed him on a boat with what looked like a group of friends. Surprised he doesn't have one with his raptors, Claire scoffed to herself, although she knew he wouldn't do that. The project was a secret, after all, and using them for a dating picture would be a very fast route to getting fired.

Her finger hovered over the screen, ready to swipe him away, but there was something about his easy grin that gave her pause. She hated that she had a crush on him, but she did. Had since she'd seen him the first time when the IBRIS crew arrived on the island and she'd met them at a meeting. She supposed she could take the opportunity to "like" him. Except… if he saw her image? No, no way. She couldn't do that. Too risky. She'd just ignore it, she decided. She wouldn't swipe left, but she also wouldn't swipe right. Confident in her decision, she was about to close the app when her door burst open, Zara entering, already mid speech about needing to get moving to make it to the meeting on time. Startled, Claire fumbled her phone, before dropping it onto the desk. Picking it up, and ignoring Zara's own startled look, she turned it off and gathered up her laptop to follow her assistant from the room.

x x x

Hopping off his motorcycle, Owen growled angrily and kicked at a loose clump of dirt as he stomped his way towards his bungalow. If it wasn't bad enough that Blue and the others had decided to act as if they'd forgotten every damn lesson, Hoskins had to be at the paddock today to witness it. And then, Owen had to listen to Hoskins try to tell him how to do his job. He wondered if he could use negative reinforcement on Hoskins to get him to show up less often. The idea caused his lips to quirk in an almost smile. He wondered what Hoskins would think about being poked with one of the stun rods. Thank god for Barry – if it hadn't been for his presence, he was pretty sure he'd have finally followed through on his long held desire to put his fist through Hoskins face. Instead, Barry had calmly stepped between them, refocusing Hoskins' attention elsewhere, before telling Owen to get out of there and get himself together.

Entering his bungalow, he tossed his vest to the side before heading for the fridge. He pulled out a beer and downed it in three gulps before setting the empty bottle on the counter. Leaning on the counter, he counted to ten trying to get his anger in check, before he reached back into the fridge for a second. This time, after tossing the cap onto the counter, he headed back outside, beelining for his hammock. Collapsing into it, he let one leg hang over the side, pushing against the ground to start it slowly rocking from side to side.

A ping from his back pocket had him squirming slightly to get his phone loose, and he saw he had a message from Barry. You get home in one piece?

Yeah, Owen tapped back. He sent a quick follow up of Fuck Hoskins.

He said he's got meetings in San Diego. He was headed off island tonight.

Owen sent back a thumbs up emoji, before closing the chat. If there was one thing he wanted to do tonight, it was not think about Hoskins. Flipping through the screens on his phone, his gaze landed on Tinder. Now that could make his evening much better.

Owen knew he had developed a bit of a reputation on the island as a player. It wasn't true. At least, not how he would define "player." He was too busy working to have time for a real relationship of any kind. But, that didn't mean he didn't have needs. An island with twenty thousand random strangers who were only ever around for a few days was just begging for one-night stands. It was almost too easy, really. The moment he mentioned in a chat that he worked on Nublar, an agreement to meet up was in his hands. Everyone wanted behind the scenes access. Not that he'd ever given it to anyone – that would move much too close to a real date, and he didn't want that. All he was interested in was a beer at a bar followed by a good time.

Opening the app, he silently acknowledged to himself that there was one person he'd be willing to change for. Not that she'd ever given him the time of the day. On the few occasions their paths had crossed, she'd looked at him mainly like he was a piece of gum stuck on the bottom of her shoe. An irritant she had to deal with, but could hopefully scrape off at the nearest convenience. It didn't give him a lot of hope for anything more, and he'd never worked up the courage to actually say something to her.

He tapped on the first picture that showed up, slowly clicking his way through. He wasn't really sure what he was in the mood for. Definitely not someone who looked too bubbly, he decided, immediately passing on one who had a picture of herself in a cheerleading uniform. Or too lecture-y, he passed on another who appeared to be scowling in all her pictures. There were days he did wonder if he'd set the age limit too low, or if he was just getting too old. What used to appeal no longer did. It must be age, he decided, quickly skipping the next few.

The next image that popped up had him almost tumbling out of his hammock, his heart breaking into a gallop, shock propelling him upright. Was that… Claire? He looked out at his lake for a few seconds before looking back at his phone. Yep, that was definitely her. At least… that was her picture. Not putting it past someone on the island of making a fake account for her, he quickly switched over to her profile to see what was written. Similar to his, it had just a single line of text – I know what I want. Okay, that had to be her. How had he never come across her before? How long had she been on there?

A never-ending stream of questions flowed through his mind, and he settled back in the hammock, flipping back to see the pictures she'd chosen to post. It was rare he got to see her looking casual and relaxed. He thought the t-shirt and jeans combo she had on at the petting zoo was definitely a look that she should wear more often.

After staring at the images longer than he wanted to admit, and maybe taking a screenshot of the petting zoo one, Owen was ready to swipe left and dismiss the image and move on. It was not like swiping right on Claire was going to finally give him that chance he wanted. Or, wait, would it? Pushing off the ground again to start swaying back and forth, he finished his beer as he debated his options. If he swept left, it was unlikely she'd ever know, and things would continue on the same as always. But if he swiped right… If he swiped right, there was always the chance she might see him and also swipe right. It could be the chance he'd been waiting and hoping for. And it was such a small move. The tiniest, really. If she didn't like him back, she wouldn't know that he'd even made the move. Of course, if she didn't like him back, he knew he was going to feel crushed. Gritting his teeth and yelling at himself for being a baby, he quickly swiped before he could chicken out.

And then, his mouth dropped open in shock when it immediately opened up a chat window. Wait, she had swiped right too? On him? First?

He rested his phone on his stomach, gaze staring up at the clouds overhead as he tried to work through this new information. He hadn't expected this outcome, and now that it had, he wasn't sure how to deal with it. What should he say? Should he say anything?

After a few minutes of fretting over it, he climbed out of the hammock to go inside for another beer. At the very least, he knew his plans had changed for the evening. How could he look at any of the other options with this looming over him?

x x x

Work had been busy and Claire hadn't even thought about Tinder since she'd installed it over lunch a few days ago. But, as she stood in line waiting to order her food, the app icon caught her eye. Deciding it wouldn't hurt to spend the couple of minutes looking at it instead of her email, she opened it up. She was surprised to find that there was a notification that she'd matched with someone. She didn't recall actually liking anyone – oh no, her face paled, had she been swiping the wrong way? She should've used the buttons instead.

Cautiously, she opened the chat window only to almost drop her phone in shock when she saw that her match was with Owen. Dammit, she must have tapped the like button when she fumbled with her phone turning it off. After getting over her initial shock, she looked down at the text field only to find it empty. She tapped around a couple of times, trying to figure out if she did something wrong. But the field remained blank.

Reaching the front of the line, she tucked her phone into her pocket as she ordered, before standing off to the side waiting for her meal. What did it mean that the chat field was empty?

It was bad enough that she apparently liked him without realizing it, but she had to admit there was a little bit of glee that came with knowing he apparently liked her back. Of course, that was accompanied with a dose of mortification because, oh god, he now knew that she liked him, even if it had been an accident.

But the chat was empty. And she knew it couldn't have opened up when she liked him. She'd been barely on the app for ten minutes at that point. It was incredibly unlikely he'd been on and liked her in that short of time. Which meant… which meant the chat window opened up for him and he didn't… what? He didn't have anything to say? He didn't want to say anything? Was his like an accident too?

She knew she shouldn't have signed up. This whole thing was going to be more stressful than it was worth. The last thing she needed was to now be thinking about this all day.

And how was she going to look him in the eye next time she saw him?

Hearing her order number, Claire numbly collected her food and started back to her office, although she was unsure how she was going to eat anything now.

Why'd he have to swipe right?

x x x

A week later, Claire was thinking that she was really lucky that she and Owen rarely crossed paths. She didn't have to do anything special to avoid interacting with him, which allowed her days to continue on as normal, as if her brief interactions with the Tinder app had never happened. As far as she was aware, no one knew what had happened and she was more than happy to keep it that way.

It had taken a few days to get over the sting that he hadn't said anything. She'd briefly debated messaging him, but decided not to. The ball had been in his court and obviously he hadn't wanted to move it forward. She would follow his lead and act like it never happened.

Every quarter the park ran a safety seminar that all employees had to attend. The half-day seminar would go through how they were supposed to act and what their responsibilities were in case of an emergency. Because the park had over 3,000 on-island employees, the seminar was repeated twice a day for an entire week, with each employee being assigned to a specific session. It also allowed the seminars to be somewhat more catered to the various employees, as the responsibilities of someone running a food cart were different than those involved with the ACU and so on.

However, Claire had been unable to attend her normally scheduled session as an important investor meeting had taken priority. Instead, she'd been tasked with attending a later session, which was why, when she entered the room, she found it filled with employees who normally worked directly with the assets, and not white collar workers like herself. Sighing, she searched for a seat at the back, not wanting to stand out any more than she already did (and she did, as she was wearing a white suit while everyone else was in jeans or khakis).

Slipping into the back row, she found a seat near the far end, tucked up against the wall. Perfect. She'd be practically invisible there. And could probably spend the whole seminar dealing with work emails.

Which she did, and the afternoon passed by in a hurry.

What she hadn't considered when she'd sat down, however, was that in order to leave, she was either going to have to squeeze by everyone else in her row or wait for them all to file out first. So much for making a quick, unnoticed, getaway.

She decided to answer a couple more emails to give people some time to exit before she'd make her move. Claire had been so involved in her emails from practically the moment she had sat down, that she hadn't noticed that Owen had been at the same session. But now, as she made her way down the aisle, she realized he was standing in the row next to her chatting with a man she recognized as Barry.

Eyes widening, she quickly swung her gaze away, hoping he wouldn't notice her before she could slip away. Luck was not in her favour.

"Claire," Barry greeted her, and she tried hard not to scowl in response, turning and pasting on a friendly smile. "Didn't expect you at our session."

"Barry, Owen," Claire barely let her eyes rest on Owen before swinging her gaze back to Barry. She'd heard the small intake of breath he'd made when Barry had said her name. "Scheduling conflict," Claire shrugged.

"Answer a lot of emails?" Owen butted in, nodding towards her phone that she was clutching tightly.

"I–" Claire was a little flummoxed. She was staring at her phone and while, yes, she had spent it answering emails, now all she could think about was a different app on the phone. That, and feeling judged for not properly paying attention to the seminar as she should have.

"No judgement," Owen quirked a grin at her, holding up his own phone. "I was playing a game."

"Right," Claire rolled her eyes. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that you didn't use the time to respond to emails." As she watched his eyes widen at her comment, she realized that it could be taken as a dig on the Tinder chat. Dammit, she hadn't wanted to make any mention of it. She was going to pretend it had never happened. Why couldn't he?

"Usually I do," Owen said back cattily, and Barry looked between the two in surprise.

So much for keeping this between only the two of them, Claire sighed. She was sure Barry would be asking questions. However, even knowing that, she couldn't help snapping back, "Well, I guess only the important ones." It was Owen's turn to look a little taken aback, and, if she was reading him right, and she was sure she wasn't, he looked a little…guilty?

"I didn't mean to," Owen said, unable to meet her gaze.

Claire just gaped back at him for a moment, before clamping her jaw shut with a snap. Didn't mean to what? Not reply? Or swipe right on her in the first place? God, Tinder was a terrible idea. "Well, no harm done," Claire pasted her friendly smile back on her face. She looked over at Barry again, who was now just watching the two of them quietly. "Nice to see you again Barry." He gave her a small nod, and Claire moved the rest of the way down the now cleared row and quickly headed out the door.

The moment she arrived back at her office she pulled out her phone, searching for the Tinder app. She opened it up and quickly went into the settings and selected the "Delete my account" button. Once it was done, she followed it up by deleting the app as well. Good riddance.

x x x

Owen had managed to distract Barry from prying too hard into what had happened between him and Claire for that conversation to have gone down. He'd just vaguely mentioned an email she'd sent that he hadn't got around to replying to, and his friend seemed to buy it, sort of. But, Barry also knew that Owen was generally a private person and, being a good friend, didn't push too hard.

However, that didn't make Owen feel any better. He knew his reaction to her email comment had been wrong. He'd seen her shocked expression at his reply. She really had just been referring to emails.

He was embarrassed. He had meant to reply to her. Had started writing a message multiple times, but nothing ever seemed right. They were too corny, or too jokey, or too lame, or too pathetic. And just saying "hi" felt too… simple. In the end, he'd just left it. He'd consoled himself that she'd probably message him when she saw the match. But then a day had gone by, then two, three, and nothing.

He was sure she'd seen the match by then. What did it mean that she hadn't replied?

Owen wanted to put all the blame on her, but he knew he was in the wrong. The chat had opened for him. He should've made the first move. So much for his tiny gesture.

x x x

Owen had just crested the top of the hill when he saw her, and he came to an abrupt halt. It had been a month since the safety seminar, and their paths hadn't crossed since. Every time he had to go over to the main operations area of the park he had felt like he was hyperalert, scanning everyone, looking for a flash of her bright hair or the white of her suit. But he'd never even caught a glimpse.

He hadn't been sure what he'd say the next time he saw her, but standing on the top of the hill, looking down and out over the ocean, he felt like any thoughts he'd had had scattered. This was supposed to be his place, at the end of a hidden trail he'd discovered not long after moving to the island. It branched off one of the main hiking trails, but unless you knew it was there, or happened to look at it just right, it was almost impossible to spot.

In all the times he'd come up here, and he'd been there plenty, he'd never encountered another person. While he thought of it as his, he'd always known that others must know – how else would the trail have come to be? But he had liked to think that whoever had first created it had moved on.

Now, standing there, he wasn't sure what to do. Did he turn around and pretend he hadn't seen her? Did he say something? Move a short distance away and pretend that he was alone? So far, she hadn't seem to notice him, her arms wrapped around her knees, gaze focused out towards the horizon.

She was wearing jeans. He wasn't sure why it surprised him. This was a hiking trail after all, and it would be even odder to have found her at the top wearing heels and one of her white suits. But it still set him off kilter, reminding him of the picture on Tinder.

He'd logged into the app a couple of days after their last meeting, thinking that maybe the way past this was to finally message her back, only to find she'd deleted her account. That had set off a huge mix of emotions. He felt guilty, of course. But he'd also felt relieved (which actually made him feel more guilty) because he didn't like the idea of her finding someone else. He hadn't opened the app since.

Deciding that it wasn't his right to intrude on her time, he made a move to turn around and brushed up against a low hanging branch. The rustling leaves caused Claire's head to swing around, her gaze immediately locking on his.

"Sorry," Owen apologized immediately. "There's usually no one here, I was just…"

"I didn't know anyone else knew about this trail," Claire admitted.

"Me either," Owen said, relaxing as he realized she wasn't about to start yelling at him (not that he really expected that). "I stumbled on it not long after I moved here. The view is just… incredible."

"Yeah," Claire sighed, her gaze moving back towards it.

"I can leave," Owen offered. "I don't want to intrude."

"It's fine," Claire shrugged.

Owen moved closer to where Claire was, sitting down a few feet away and positioning himself similarly, looking out over the water. They both sat there quietly, each lost in their own thoughts; together, but not. It was surprisingly comfortable, Owen found, listening to the distance sound of the waves crashing, and the occasional roar of a dinosaur. He'd expected it to be awkward, but it wasn't.

"Can I ask you something?" Claire's voice broke him out of his thoughts about ten minutes later.

Owen swung his gaze in her direction, catching her looking over at him with a puzzled look on her face. "Um, sure?"

"When you said you didn't mean to," Claire looked back out over the water as she spoke, her voice soft and Owen had to strain to hear. "Did you mean not message or not swipe right?"

"Oh," Owen rested his hands on the ground behind him, leaning back, as he considered his answer.

"You don't have to tell me," Claire quickly stated, when his pause grew. "Maybe… actually, I'm not sure I want to know."

"Why?" Owen pressed, surprised at her uncertain tone. He'd never seen her less than confident before.

"I'm not really sure what one is worse," Claire admitted.

"I meant to," Owen said after another pause. He waited until she looked over at him, before expanding. "I meant to swipe right. And I meant to message you after I did."

"Why didn't you?"

Owen looked away, embarrassed. "I couldn't figure out what to say. Everything just felt… I don't know. 'Hi' was too simple, but 'I'm surprised you're on here' felt wrong…"

"What do you normally say?" Claire questioned. "Why didn't you just do that?"

"Want to grab a beer and hook up?" Owen almost burst out laughing at the shocked expression that crossed Claire's face. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I'm not that straightforward. But… um… most of the conversations do kind of go down that path."

"Really?"

"It's Tinder," Owen shrugged. "Besides, 99% of the people on that app are only on the island for a few days. No one's looking for anything more than that."

"Oh."

They both lapsed into silence again, and a few more minutes passed before Owen broke it. "Why were you on there? It doesn't seem like your kind of thing."

"It's not," Claire agreed. "Zara was bugging me about getting out more and…"

"Zara told you to go on Tinder?" Owen was surprised. He'd met her assistant and, to his knowledge, he'd never seen her come across his matches before.

"Not exactly," Claire shrugged. "I just… I didn't know where to look. It was one she'd mentioned, and, well, she made the same comment you did – that everyone on there was only around for a few days."

"You don't strike me as a one-night stand person," Owen said, raising an eyebrow at her.

"I… I'm not, usually," Claire confessed. "I guess I was just trying to push my boundaries. Get outside my comfort zone."

"Did it work?"

"No," Claire shook her head, before pausing to push her hair behind her ears again. "I didn't find anyone to swipe right on."

"Except for me, you mean," Owen grinned at her.

"I didn't even know I'd done that," Claire blushed. "I was so startled to see your profile, and then Zara walked in…"

"Wow, thanks," Owen clutched his hands in front of his heart, acting like he'd be hit. "Way to bring a guy down."

"Sorry," Claire shrugged, not looking the least bit sorry.

"Were you going to?" Owen asked. "Swipe right, I mean."

"I don't know," Claire shrugged again. "I hadn't made up my mind."

"I'm glad you did," Owen finally decided to be brave.

"Yeah?" Claire looked at him with slight doubt.

"Yeah," Owen nodded firmly. "I've been trying to figure out how to approach you for months now."

"What? Smooth, charming Owen lacks the courage to ask someone out?" Claire was looking at him with disbelief.

"Hey, it's not as easy as it looks," Owen said. "It's not like you're going to be gone a few days later if things don't work out." He watched as she slowly nodded in agreement. "But, hey, since we're here…" He trailed off, hoping she'd pick up the thread.

"Yeah?" Claire asked, a grin spreading across her face.

"You're not going to make this any easier on me, are you?" Owen chuckled as Claire shook her head. "Fine. Claire, would you go out with me?"

x x x

Smoothing down her dress, Claire checked herself in the mirror one last time before leaving her place. Tonight was the night. Maybe Tinder was going to turn out to be not so bad after all.

Exiting the building, she moved to stand just beside the entrance. She tried to ignore the annoyance that rose within, realizing that he was late. This was Owen she reminded herself, of course he was late.

A few minutes later the roar of a motorcycle grabbed her attention and she looked up from her phone where she'd been checking emails (might as well get some work done while she waited) to see Owen pulling to a stop in front of her. He wore a bright smile on his face that she greeted with one of her own, as he put down the kickstand and gracefully hopped off to stand in front of her.

It was at that point that she realized what he was wearing: board shorts. A t-shirt and board shorts. She worked hard to keep her face neutral, but her heart was sinking. She'd thought after their conversation that they were on the same page. That they were both looking for something more than just a one-night stand with the other. That maybe this was going to turn into something real.

Apparently, she was wrong.

Well, I hope that was worth the read. Let me know if you agree (or don't - I can take it).

Oh! I always forget to add - go check out The Missing Years by myself and Elise under our joint account (EliseCollier-akaJB). It's going to cover the years between JW and FK, and we're trying really hard to stay within canon. But we've got a whole JW date backstory there that will also get explored.