ECHOES

I've been promising to write something based on that trailer ever since I first saw it – life caught up with me, I'm afraid, and it's a bit (a lot) later than I'd hoped. Hope you enjoy, regardless. Clawen. Oneshot. A little angsty, rather smutty. I've put my own take on the very short scene we were given, and what happened next.

"I know why we're here."

Somehow, that's the first time you've heard something familiar in his voice. You can hear the half-smile before you look up from the table you'd been examining intently, because you can't quite meet his eyes, not for long. Because everything he's saying, that almost-taunting about the ventriloquist, that hits slightly too close to home, though you'd never admit it. Because all of a sudden, everything that went wrong seems so insignificant, so ineffectual. It's the first time he's been sat in front of you in months, almost a year, since somewhere in the midst of all the fire, all the clashing, you'd thrown his things together into his duffel bag and half pushed him out the door with it, promising you'd leave his other things in the porch the following day when you were at work. Because even then, you'd known when you were able to calm down, when the heat of the moment, so to speak, had dissipated, you wouldn't be able to look him in the eye and tell him he meant nothing.

You'd never been able to lie to him.

Forming sentences seems to become slightly more difficult. "I… I wouldn't've asked you if I didn't…"

He runs a hand through his hair, sighing, and you haven't realised how much you've missed this, the familiar gestures, the undertones in his voice. The details that are so close, so intimate, only possible to translate because you've looked death in the eye from by his side, you've woken up entwined in him for more than a year, and more than once, his eyes have been the only thing anchoring you to reality. "It's… it's madness, Claire."

"I know." You sigh. "But Blue's alive, Owen… you raised her."

When he looks up, something flashes behind his eyes, if only for a second, and for a moment it's like no time has passed at all. Then his sigh is defined, and you can't help swallowing – despite everything, you've never liked hurting him, and Blue's always been that one subject that'll floor him, ever since the Jurassic World disaster. You'd tried and tried but never been quite able to understand the almost parental bond Owen had developed with the girls, that had been so cruelly wrenched from him. In some awful, haphazard way, Blue had tortured him more than what had happened to the other three. He'd woken up in cold sweats for months, the great unknown clawing him from sleep. It had taught you a new appreciation for closure.

"You really think any of us should be stupid enough to go back… after… after everything?"

You're silenced for a moment – you can hardly remember him sounding this vulnerable. For a moment, it's like you're under the bed sheets that first night, finally somewhere safe, if a little dirty with a leaking shower faucet and a stained ceiling, and you're both so completely exposed to one another even the concept of there ever being anything unsaid seems impossible. It's something to do with that old feeling forcing its way through all the layers you've buried it under that lets the next words out.

"It's the only thing that makes sense." You half whisper, and imperceptibly, something changes. In his face, in his demeanour, in his voice. Because suddenly, nothing that happened has actually happened, and everything is ahead of you again. Somehow.

"Ok." He breathes, and because you're so prepared to have to persuade him you're not completely mad, this is a good idea, you open and close your mouth on nothing at all.

"R….really?" you manage eventually, and in any other moment you would have detested yourself a little for how weak, how dependent, how frightened you sound, but this isn't any other moment. As ever, Owen exposes you to a reality you didn't even quite know existed.

He looks away, like meeting your eyes for too long is still a struggle. "Really." He confirms, as if he's telling the pool table, and you can almost hear your heart thumping in your ears. You and him, back on that island, after all this time, everything that's happened since. You're practically two different people, but in that moment it's like nothing's changed at all. You swallow your last sip of beer and lift your handbag, because you've always been made uneasy by the person you are around Owen Grady, and you don't have time for that girl, not right now. You've got a rescue mission to plan, seemingly a thousand people to contact, and you need a spine of iron and a sense of calm, not your heart in your throat and that slightly alien tingle zipping down through your body.

"I'll email you all the details – we should be looking to get set before next weekend, we haven't got a lot of time-" you half mumble as you start to stand, and suddenly his eyes spin back to yours, and his hand catches your wrist.

You go cold, the world blurs around the edges. You're definitely not ready to have his skin against yours again.

"Have another drink, Claire." he whispers, and you're sure that's the first time he's let his eyes lock with yours. Cunning bastard. He's remembered you're completely incapable of tearing your own away. "For old times' sake?"

You take a little comfort in the fact that there's an underlying nervousness, almost, in the question, as you sink back into the chair. Because he knows he's playing you, he knows you can't resist, but maybe there's a hint of the unknown there, an insecurity, because maybe you've changed. It's almost been a year (eleven months, one week and six days, but who's counting?), and he's joking about who you've been dating, but he doesn't know. He doesn't know you're not madly in love, he doesn't know you're not so far over him you've almost forgotten his name, he doesn't know that you still wake up and reach for him sometimes in the mornings…

"One, then." You sigh, and that's the first real smile you see. As he goes up to the bar, you set your handbag back down, and for a moment consider that you shouldn't be reacting like a teenage girl on a first date, but your hands are slightly clammy, your heart's still thumping, and you can't seem to catch your breath.

When he sets the large glass of white wine in front of you, you raise one eyebrow, and as his gaze meets yours he smiles, and for a moment something unspoken flows through the air between you. There's not a chance he doesn't remember that of all the things you'll drink, white wine is the least likely to only be one drink, it makes you feel the most at ease, and that white-wine-drunk Claire is the horniest drunk Claire. But you don't say anything, of course you don't, you just take a long sip. He doesn't take his eyes off you as it slides down your throat.

Maybe because it's white wine, maybe because you've missed him, and maybe because deep down you're absolutely terrified about what you've just agreed you're going to do, it isn't one drink. And when he sets down glass of wine number four or five and with it two shot glasses of something clear (hell, it's tequila, who are you kidding?), he takes a deep breath, like he's building up the courage to say something. You laugh at him lightly, because the wine's softening everything and you'd almost forgotten how easy it was to be in his company.

"Spit it out, Owen."

He downs his tequila, and then meets your eyes. "I'm serious, Claire. How've you been? You found someone…?"

Someone better hangs unspoken in the air, and he sounds so sad, so you don't think.

"No, I'm not… I'm not with anyone. I… I did try… but it didn't… they weren't…"

Oh Jeez, apparently white-wine-drunk Claire is the most honest drunk Claire, too.

There's a hint of a laugh behind his eyes, then. "They weren't what?"

You knock back the tequila, because who are you kidding, you're going to tell him eventually, anyway. "They weren't you."

For a moment, he only greets you with silence, and the dread starts to course through your veins.

You've misread everything, he's hopelessly in love with someone else, he'd practically forgotten you existed, this was to him just a genuine few drinks with an old friend, an old acquaintance, you've royally screwed it up now, nothing's ever going to…

He swallows, and the vulnerability flares again in his face. He reaches across the table and takes your hand, and you don't pull away, so you suppose that's something.

"I screwed up, Claire."

"We screwed up." You counter, and you're not sure you believed it until you said it. "I've not been able to find anyone that absolutely doesn't fit so… so… so well."

He half laughs then, and takes another long drink. "I haven't even tried."

You weren't expecting that. But he's never been any better at lying to you than you are at lying to him, so there isn't even a moment you don't believe it. And suddenly, there's only one possible direction for this evening to go. You drink that last wine glass in three long and not very ladylike gulps, and you twine your fingers through his, raising your eyes to his and knowing full well he'll see something quite different in them.

"Take me home, Owen?"

He looks for a moment like he's going to argue with you, like he's going to tell you you're bound to regret this, this wouldn't be what you wanted if you were sober, that nothing good will ever come of this, but he seems to think better of it. He leaves half a bottle of beer on the table as he stands and walks out with you, his hand finding its old familiar hangout on the small of your back.

You haven't been to his new place before, so there's that thumping of your heart, that excitement for something new as he leads you down the street, his hand never leaving yours – and somehow it's like it's never left, not really. The last eleven months crumble between your fingertips as he scans into the building and leads you into the elevator.

There are still no words, and you wonder one moment if maybe you don't have anything worthwhile to say to one another anymore, and in the next moment whether you just don't need to. You've always found his eyes expressive, but you suppose the time apart had dulled the memory. Because you can see everything in his eyes, and it's somewhere between terrifying and the one thing that's been missing this last year.

As the elevator doors slide closed, one of his hands has found its way to rest on your hip, and if you thought you were short of breath before, you were wrong. Because suddenly he's looking right at you, and his eyes flicker down to your lips for a millisecond, and that's all the invitation you need. That's all it takes for you and Owen to end up making out against the mirror like horny teenagers when the elevator doors slide open. Thankfully, it's late (you're not sure how late, the length of time you stayed at the bar has become hazy), and there's no one to tut or laugh as you spring apart, blushing.

You're both laughing as Owen takes you by the hand and you stumble down the corridor, and then through his front door, and as he closes the door behind you he pins you against the wood, pressing every inch of himself against every inch of you, and you're reminded of how large he is, how overpowering, how suffocating. His lips don't find their way back to yours, they find that spot just below your ear lobe, and you're sure he remembers what that does to you, because he catches you as your knees buckle. Suddenly you're wrapping your legs around his waist, and you can feel him through the denim of both your jeans, and two thoughts cross your mind – that you're very grateful you're still as much his weakness as you ever were, and that he must be very uncomfortable in those pants. You're not sure why he's still wearing them.

He spins away from the front door, pressing you against another, colder, more solid wall, and you find your fingers threading into his hair, dragging his mouth up to meet yours. His tongue dances against yours with a familiarity you don't suppose will ever disappear, and suddenly one of his hands is snaking its way down your front, tearing at the buttons, leaving you exposed. As his hips rock roughly against yours, you can feel the heat building between your own legs. It's been eleven months, one week and six days, and now you're thinking about it, that's a very long time since anyone's touched you like that. As his palm slides under the satin of your bra and he runs his thumb roughly over your nipple (dear god, you'd missed his hands), you can't help gasping his name against his mouth.

It's urgent, then. Seemingly of their own accord, your fingers find their way to his belt buckle, and his hips jerk uncontrollably as you lightly graze him sliding the zipper down. He seems to have lost any semblance of control, and he's pressing his head against the wall behind you, giving messy, loose kisses to the newly exposed skin between your neck and shoulder, as you tilt your head back in rapture.

"Bed…" you manage to hiss, because you're sure even in his new, apparently celibate bachelor lifestyle, Owen Grady has somewhere this'll all be slightly more comfortable. He grunts something at you in response, and then, before you know it, he's staggering blindly through the flat with you in his arms, and roughly shoving you between pillows, those sinful fingers still tracing burning patterns where you need them most.

Or almost where you need them most. Now towering above you, one of those hands starts snaking lower, easing your jeans over your hips until you can start kicking them off, and then they're dancing at the edges of your underwear, and over you through the pink panties, and they must be revelling in how ridiculously wet and ready for him he can still make you.

"Fuck." He hisses as, impatiently, you push your panties down. His fingers take merely seconds to find themselves exactly where you want them, strumming against all the swollen and highly sensitised flesh, exactly as you remember, those huge bludgeoning fingers moving with the grace and delicacy of a ballerina.

You have a moment of sudden clarity where you consider how good he's making you feel, and how neglected he must be feeling, and you snake one of your hands under his boxers, sliding your fingers around him. You're rewarded with a rough thrust and a gentle squeeze between your legs which has you seeing stars. You're so close.

He was always like this, able to make you putty with his fingers, his mouth, his tongue and his cock from almost the word go. (You don't count that first night in the dodgy motel just off the island, when you both hadn't slept for over 48 hours, every muscle in your body was aching, and all you both wanted was to remind yourself you were human.) But because it's been so long, because you've been missing him in so many more ways than you've admitted to yourself, and because he's coming back to that godforsaken island with you, you need him inside you. Now. You need the whole thing, in this moment, you need his everything… in your state of mind that is somewhere between not-as-drunk-as-you-were-when-you-agreed-to-this and delirious with sex, you tell yourself there'll be plenty of time for the wonders he can work with just his fingers (and, heaven help you, his tongue) afterwards. For now, you both need the whole thing. The real deal.

"I need you, Owen." You pant, and he doesn't need any clarification. He knows exactly what you mean, what you need. He lines himself up, his cock taunting you in the sudden absence of his fingers, and he pins your hands above your head, bringing his mouth down to graze your collarbone as he slides inside you.

You cry out, because it's sudden, it's everything you've been missing for the last eleven months, one week and six days, and you're overwhelmed by how you suddenly feel like there's not a piece missing again, even after all this time. He buries himself to the hilt, grinding against you, and on instinct you start to rock your hips to some sort of familiar rhythm, as innate to you as one of those songs you learnt as a child.

It's fucking beautiful, but you're impatient right now, and you need that feeling coursing through your veins that will overpower everything else. That's always been your problem, there's always been too much going on in your head. You snake one of your hands down, heading between your legs, to give the little extra you need, when Owen growls, and snatches your arm roughly, pulling it from its path.

"Mine." He hisses, and for a moment you open your eyes and meet his and they're darker than you've ever seen them before. Those sinful fingers of his take the place that yours were heading for, and then it's all happening at once. He's rubbing, and he's rocking and he's pulling almost completely out of you and he's slamming back in, and you can't breathe, and you can't think, and you can't-

You half scream as you fall over the edge, muscles clenching around him, fingers threading roughly through his as the orgasm courses through your body. That's almost enough for him, as always used to be the way, and with a few short, sharp thrusts he comes hard inside of you, swearing and teeth grazing your shoulder.

You can't help it, as the post-coital high subsides and you feel him soften inside you, the sobs start racking your body.

Wordlessly, he gathers you in his arms, curling around you, and whispers something inane, soothing you into some kind of half-sleep.

You're trying to squeeze silently back into your jeans and force the buttons on your shirt back into obedience when he crooks one eye open, shielding his face straight away from the morning sun seeping between his curtains.

"You're not just leaving, without saying anything, Claire…" he half groans, but it's not really a question, "You owe me more than that… we need to talk…"

You shrug, because last night was really bloody good, all those feelings you'd told yourself were non-existent these days had risen, and the philosophy you've found once or twice over this last year, usually when drinking, that the two of you were better together than apart, had basically been proven.

"We don't need to talk. We don't have time to talk. I've got a rescue mission to plan, this is just complicating-"

He half sits up, and for a moment you think he might shout, but he almost laughs. "Don't do that. I know you too well, Claire. You wouldn't have let anything happen last night if it wasn't what you wanted, too." He reaches out and cups your cheek, running his thumb across your skin. You don't push him away, which you suppose is something. "Now, I'm not putting my life on the line with you again unless we talk."

You find yourself rolling your eyes, but suddenly you're half under the covers with him again, and it's all surprisingly easy. You give him an almost bitter smile.

"Ok… so I didn't… I didn't not want last night… but… After all this, Owen, where does that leave us? The same place we were last time? Trying too hard for too long to make something work that was never going to?"
His eyes flash. "That's what you think we were? Really? That we never had a chance?"

You sigh. "I don't know. I was caught up in everything, I never felt like that about someone and I-"

"I loved you too, Claire. That wasn't anything to do with it. We were both too headstrong, and too-"

"You were-" he puts a finger to your lips, cutting you off.

"We both screwed it up, Claire. You admitted as much last night. Back then… tensions were running too high and we were both scared. And surviving. And that was the priority. And maybe we weren't right for each other then, or for too long…" he traces your lips almost absentmindedly with his finger. "But we've found each other again, Claire. And we're about to blindly wander back into absolutely certain mortal danger-" you can't help the laugh that shakes through you, drawing a wry smile from Owen, "-together, and there's no one else I'd rather be doing that with. That's gotta count for something, right?"

It makes sense, when he puts it like that, you think, as you close your eyes and you let him pull you closer and start pushing your jeans back over your hips. He pulls the finger away from your lips only to replace it with his own lips, and in that moment you can't remember all your arguments, all the reasons you've made yourself brainstorm a thousand times that Owen Grady is a terrible match for you.

He tastes like familiarity, and fear, and echoes of a future that had once been everything you'd ever wanted. You suppose that'll have to be enough, for now.

FINIS

That's a wrap! Hope you enjoyed, would love to hear what you think! I love the idea of Owen and Claire getting back together before heading out to the island, and though I don't think that's what we'll see in Fallen Kingdom, a girl can dream, right?

I'll apologise again for how long it took me to write this piece. I have five thousand life and job and job hunting related excuses I won't bore you all with. You got the fic in the end. Let me know if it worked for you, how you would have done it differently, what you wish it had included, whatever you want… leave me a little review.