Disclaimer: Dinosaurs does not belong to me, but this fic does and so does Rena.

Life Goes On

It had taken nearly all day to unearth the skeleton and the group of young interns were more than happy to finally be done with it. They removed their gloves and packed up their tools, brushed off their clothes and sat back, relaxing for the first time in hours. Necks were cracked and shoulders rolled as sweat was wiped from dusty brows.

"I say we call it a day," said a young man with blond hair, standing and brushing off the seat of his pants. Clouds of dust rose behind him. "Someone wanna tell Mr. Walker we're done?"

"Sounds like a plan," said another boy, standing and stretching. "I'll go," he said through a loud, open-mouthed yawn before he started the walk back to their campsite where Mr. Walker would be waiting. The others piled into the blond's jeep.

"Rena, Bobby, you guys coming or what?" a girl called over the roar of the engine. "We're heading into town before we go back to camp."

"I'm gonna stick around and clean this guy up a bit more," Rena replied, tucking a stray lock of hair behind one ear.

"Sure thing, hun. And what about you, Bobby?"

"I'll walk back later," said the boy with the black hair and pale green eyes.

"Suit yourselves. Later!"

After the sound of mechanics and giddy banter faded away in the distance, Rena sighed quietly as she leaned over the fossilized remains of the dinosaur. She used a brush to dust away some sand near the eye socket and cocked her head to the side. She couldn't recognize the bone structure. Biting her bottom lip, she looked up at the older boy sitting quietly on a nearby boulder.

"Bobby?"

Her voice jerked him out of his daydreams. "Yeah?"

"Do you have any idea what this is? I can't recognize it at all."

He smirked at her. "What's it look like to you?"

"At first, I thought it was an Allosaurus," she said. "But then I realized it was too small."

"Maybe it was a juvenile?"

Rena shook her head. "I don't think so. Maybe an adolescent, but even so – the structure's all wrong here," she said, waving a hand over the lower half of the body. "The bones are thicker. Stronger."

Bobby nodded and hummed in thought. "Maybe it was a hybrid of some kind."

She rose an eyebrow.

"Oh come on. Animals do it all the time. Desperate times call for desperate measures," he chuckled, and so did Rena.

"Okay, wise guy, it sounds like you have a theory. Let's hear it."

He smirked and made room for his friend on the boulder. "Think of it like this: we have all kinds of interbreeding going on in the world, right?" Rena nodded as she sat beside him. "Well, I figure it's part of evolution. If animals are doing it now, they had to have been doing it then. To ensure the survival of the species. I don't see why two different theropods wouldn't mate and produce offspring."

She considered this, then nodded again as she tucked her brushes into her backpack and let it rest at her feet. "You have a point."

"I agree with you that this thing here is definitely half Allosaurus," he said, nodding.

"And the other half?"

"Megalosaurus," he murmured.

Rena chuckled. "Bobby, no one's even found a full skeleton yet. How can you be sure?"

He shrugged and grinned. "Gut feeling?"

"Gut feelings aren't going to get you a passing grade," Rena grinned cheekily, elbowing him playfully in the ribs. "You need proof."

"Yeah, yeah," he waved her off, then the two became silent as they stared at the fossil once again. Bobby glanced out of the corner of his eye at the younger girl and smirked; he could tell from the way she stared at the remains and the way she gnawed on her bottom lip that she was trying her hardest to analyze their findings. To make sense of this strange creature that defied the laws of nature.

"You won't be able to figure it out, you know," he chuckled. Rena glared at him.

"What makes you so sure?"

He shrugged. "'Cause I have this feeling – "

"You and your feelings..."

" – that we got dinosaurs all wrong to begin with. Trying to understand something totally new in that field now is like trying to build Rome in a day."

She supposed he had a point. Nodding, she sighed. "We should head back, it's getting dark."

"Yeah, you're right." He stood and brushed the dust from the back of his pants. She picked up her backpack, then wrapped her arm around his as they started the walk back to the campsite.

--

They spent the night by the fire, talking quietly long after Mr. Walker had turned in for the night. Rena tossed a dried twig into the fire then buttoned up the sweater Bobby had kindly lent her to keep her warm. "Thanks," she said, watching the twig surrender to the flames.

"No prob," he replied, watching the frail piece of dead wood turn to ash and ember gradually until there was nothing left. Staring into the flames, he could remember flowers and dust clouds that were near suffocating.

"What are you thinking about?" Rena asked, craning her neck to get a better view of his face.

He looked to her slowly, finding it almost difficult to pull his eyes away from the fire. He grinned lopsidedly. "The end of the world."

"We find one strange specimen and suddenly the world's coming to an end? Bobby, I think you've inhaled too much lacquer."

"I forgot how to laugh," he said with a roll of his eyes. "I didn't mean the end of our world. I meant the end of theirs."

The brunette was quiet for a moment, tracing a crooked line in the sand with the toe of her shoe. She met his gaze hesitantly. "How do you think it came about?"

"How do you?"

"I'm not too sure. I suppose I believe the whole Big Bang theory."

"You would," Bobby snickered. It was, after all, what she had been taught. "I think the ecosystem failed as a whole through a series of unfortunate events. The plant-life went first, then volcanoes erupted violently, casting monstrous clouds over the world, causing a winter that lasted for millions of years, ultimately wiping the slate clean in order to start all over."

"Like the ice age?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Like the ice age. Except, there was no coming back from this; this was nature's genocide of a race that threatened to overthrow and ruin the earth."

"You sound like that guy from Jurassic Park. Discovery is rape of the natural world," Rena chuckled.

"Then maybe I'm in the wrong field," Bobby retorted with a wry grin. "But seriously, just go along with me for a minute. Pretend I'm right. If the world hit the reset button then, what's stopping it from doing it again, now? We're far too advanced for our own good, don't you think?"

Rena shuddered at the thought. "You're creeping me out."

"Sorry," he apologized as he stood and helped her to her feet, letting her wrap her arm around his the way she always did as they started toward their side-by-side tents, leaving the fire to die.

"What exactly were you trying to get at?" she asked, absently squeezing his forearm a little tighter to her chest. He could feel her heart pounding inside; she never was one to discuss the end of the world and all life as they knew it, but it was an undeniable – inevitable – thing she would have to face sooner or later.

He took a breath and ran his free hand through his hair, then rubbed the back of his neck uneasily. "Just that: the dinosaurs had their chance and they blew it," he said with a certainty that made her shiver. "Let's just hope we don't blow ours."

--

That night he dreamed of cider poppies and bombs and volcanoes and an unyielding, brutal winter. He dreamed of scales instead of skin and a family larger the one he had today, one he felt he truly belonged in with his mother, father, grandmother, younger sister and baby brother. He remembered the way they all huddled together near the end, attempting to make cold blood run hot if it meant they could live another day.

The order in which they perished is a blur – thank God – but he remembered the way they ache intensified with each loss, each hole carved into weakening heart until finally the hurt stopped, and the cold and darkness was vanquished by endless warmth and light. He had felt drowsy, as though he had just awoken from a deep sleep – and he supposed that was accurate, considering he had died and this was some strange limbo (nothing like what Grandma had described when she experienced near-death).

And he had remained that way for longer than he cared to remember, drifting in and out of consciousness until finally he was jarred into total awareness by his own desperate cries for his first breath of actual air. For awhile after, everything had felt knew and he had to learn how to be alive again.

He woke, breath coming in short gasps and sweat beaded on his brow. He was used to the dreams, the memories, but they always left him dizzied and trembling on the inside. He slithered out of his sleeping bag and left his tent, squinting against the harsh rays of the early morning sun as he wandered back to the strange fossil he and the rest of the interns had unearthed.

He wrapped his arms around himself as he stared down at the grayed, dusty bones and smiled something enigmatic.

It took years to learn who he was, and even longer to remember who and what he had been millions of years ago, but it was all well worth the wait and dreams and memories that tried his patience and sanity on a routine basis. It all brought him here in the end, to this dig out in the badlands, with the remains of himself sprawled out before him, where past and present collided and, in retrospect, he was whole again.

A sudden warmth draped across his shoulders and back snapped him out of his thoughts and the smile turned into something appreciative and friendly. "Did I wake you?"

Rena nodded, smiling sheepishly as she stood beside him as h e slipped his arms inside the sleeves of his sweater, the one he had let Rena wear the night before.

"Sorry," he murmured.

"Don't worry about it." She paused, looking from her best friend to the skeleton at their feet, then back to him. "Bobby, what are you doing out here? It's seven o'clock in the morning. Not even Mr. Walker's up yet."

He took a breath and squatted, daring to brush his fingertips over the bones. The contact made his heart pound. "I'm not sure," he admitted, chuckling. "Just getting re-acquainted with the past."

She chucked as she squatted beside him, watching his fingers run over the rows of sharp teeth that lined the mouth. "Re-acquainted? Have you two met before?"

He looked to her, his gaze holding hers. He was smirking now, and something about it made her think fangs could lurk behind the curve of his lips. "Rena, do you believe in reincarnation?"