Disclaimer: I don't own Jurassic Park. =( sad day.
A/N: So here's the first chapter re-done, thanks to my Beta-reader, Mondhase. Please leave a review to tell me how you like the fixed version.
Prologue: Last year
Evelyn was numb as she sat in the small chair next to her brother's hospital bed. She had been sitting there for almost four hours, ever since her brother had been moved from surgery into a normal room.
She grimaced as she once again looked over her brother's bruised and battered form, knowing that she probably didn't look much better, but it did remind her of the fact that they had just been in a serious four car pileup. Their mother had been driving them all home from Ethan's baseball game when the moving van next to them had tried to get in their lane, but hadn't realized they were next to them and smashed into them instead. Unfortunately the two cars behind them had been too close and hadn't been able to brake fast enough and had ended up crashing into the back of their car.
By the time the ambulance had gotten to the hospital, her mother had been declared DoA due to severe head trauma and Ethan had immediately been taken away for surgery because of a ruptured spleen. Evelyn herself had been treated for a severe concussion and needed stitches in her hand where she had pressed it into the broken window on reflex. As they were both only sixteen they were required to stay in the hospital until a lawyer could be reached, but it wasn't as if Evelyn would have wanted to be anywhere else right now, even if she could have left.
A knock on the door pulled her out of her thoughts and she looked over to see a woman, who was professionally dressed walk in.
"Miss. Tanner?" She asked. Evelyn nodded warily. The woman gave an overly cheerful smile that was definitly not appropriate in Evelyn's opinion, and came in further.
"I'm Mrs. Brady. I'm your mothers' lawyer and am in charge of finding you and your brother a new guardian." She stated. Evelyn shot her a panicked look.
"We get to stay together don't we?" She asked, moving over to sit on the end of Ethan's bed. Mrs. Brady smiled again.
"Of course. Your mother has a will that I have already looked over. It seems that everything she owned was left to you and your brother, and you will receive the money on your 18th birthday. She has also mentioned that in the event of her death, your father is to be given custody of the two of you." The woman said this all very quickly and made Evelyn blink.
"What's going on?" Came a hoarse and sleepy voice from behind Evelyn, causing her to jump and turn to see that Ethan was awake and looking slightly more alert than Evelyn had been expecting.
"Ethan! You're awake! What…what do you remember?" Evelyn asked in concern, completely ignoring Mrs. Brady.
"I think I remember a van coming closer to us and hitting us… and then, arriving in the ambulance and hearing that someone was declared DoA… where's mom?" Ethan asked. He looked confused, lost and like he wasn't entirely sure he was awake. Evelyn just shook her head and tried to blink back tears, she wasn't going to cry in front of a complete stranger.
Mrs. Brady, one the other hand seemed to completely ignore the twins exchange as she checked her watch and clapped her hands once to bring their attention back to her.
"Well, your Mother has given your father's information in her will, so I will contact him before you two are released from here. That's all I wanted to say. I'll see you two either tomorrow or the next day to take you to pack some belongings and take you to your new house, goodbye!" Mrs. Brady said before striding out the door.
The twins were silent for a few moments, just staring at each other.
"Are you okay?" Ethan finally asked, having finally registered how battered she was. Evelyn blinked before nodding.
"Yes, I have several stitches in my hand, a concussion that they are monitoring and a few bumps and bruises, but otherwise I'm fine. You had to have surgery to remove your spleen because it ruptured in the crash and mom… mom…" Tears welled up in Evelyn's eyes again, and before she could blink them back, she broke down and started crying, leaning into Ethan who gave her as tight a hug as he could before he closed his own eyes and started to cry as the reality that their mother was gone started to sink in.
The next few days went by in a blur as the twins were released from the hospital, required to pack up their house, choose the belongings they wanted to bring with them to their new home or keep in a storage shed, and attend their mother's funeral.
The funeral was small because of how quickly everything was put together, but the twins made sure to let everyone who planned to attend know that their mother always wanted the women at her funeral to wear some kind of green, while the men wore red, two of her favorite colors. Try as they might though, the twins simply couldn't find the ability to smile, instead they both stared blankly as the casket was lowered and as people came up to express their sympathies.
Even the man who had crashed into them had attended, coming up to them at the end of the funeral,
"I know you two don't know me… but I'm the driver who crashed into your car." He paused, running a shaking hand through his blonde hair. "I'm so, so sorry, I know nothing I say will bring your mom back, but I am so, very sorry." He choked out. Evelyn stared at him blankly, at a complete loss of what to say. She was surprised he even had the guts to show up. Ethan though, turned red, glaring at the man.
"You think saying sorry is going to make it all better?" He demanded, his voice raising and catching attention of a few of the people who were still lingering. The man looked down and shook his head. "Because it doesn't! She's dead! Gone! Because you couldn't use your eyes or brain enough to watch where you were going! Saying sorry won't help anything."
By the end, he was shouting, snapping Evelyn enough out of her depressed stupor to put her hand on his arm.
"Ethan…" She muttered brokenly, trying to tell him to quiet down, that she was there for him, and that at least the man was taking the blame. Ethan snapped his mouth shut, his eyes that had taken a glassy sheen glaring at a spot on the ground. She looked at the man,
"I think it's better that you leave, sir." She watched as the man nodded in resignation, obviously seeing that they weren't going to be forgiving him anytime soon. Before he left she said quietly, "We might not forgive you, but thank you for being brave enough to come…" she trailed off, not able to say anything else but turning to her brother and giving him a hug instead as she tried to choke down a sob. Not watching as the man walked off.
Shortly afterwards, they had been once again ushered off to go finish up packing before leaving for their father's house.
They were currently in Mrs. Brady's car, driving to their newly discovered father's home. 'It really should be rainy.' Evelyn thought dully to herself as she continued to look out the car's window. 'That's how it is in all the movies where someone dies, it rains to reflect everyone's mood.' When she felt Ethan grab her hand she looked over to him to see he was giving her a concerned look. She tried to smile at him, but it came out more as a grimace.
"It'll be okay." Ethan muttered to her. She shot him a look of disbelief.
"Okay? How will anything be okay? Mom's dead and we're being sent to live with our dad who we know nothing about, other than that mom told us he never wanted kids and didn't know about us. I don't even want to think about how that phone call to him went." She made a pretend phone with her pinky and thumb and put it to her ear as she chirped happily,
"Hello Mr. Grant, this is a lawyer, I'm just calling to tell you that you have two children you never knew about and their mom just died so they're coming to live with you." She then took on a look of surprise to indicate the change of person as she continued to say. "Children you say? Why, I never wanted children but sure! I'd love to take them." She dropped the expression and her hand as she gave Ethan a deadpan look, "Yeah, right."
"Geewiz Eve, let's try and give him a chance okay? Maybe he won't be that bad, after all, we're not really kids anymore, we're teens." Ethan said, obviously trying to look on the bright side like he usually did. Evelyn just raised her eyebrow before going back to looking out her window.
"Whatever floats your boat." She muttered. She heard Ethan sigh before squeezing her hand and letting it go. It wasn't long until they were pulling up to a small dark brown house that had a simple, but well-kept look to it.
"Alright kids, here we are." Mrs. Brady said brightly. As Evelyn had first suspected, the woman had an overly cheerful outlook on life. She had been the one to track down their father, which she had said had been fairly easy because apparently his name was on their birth certificates as well as in their mother, Wendy's, will. Which made sense to the twins, since she had always intended to tell them about him when they were 18. Evelyn and Ethan got out of the car and stared at the house apprehensively before going to grab the luggage they had been permitted to bring from the trunk.
"Alright now, please be on your best behavior. Your father expressed some worries about taking on two kids he didn't know about, so give him some time to adjust." Mrs. Brady said as she led them up to the house. The twins gave her identical looks of disbelief.
"He's adjusting? Then what are we doing?" Ethan whispered quickly to his sister, who just shrugged, answering with a quiet
"Not adjusting, apparently." They quieted down when Mrs. Brady knocked on the door.
"One moment!" Came a muffled yell from somewhere in the house. After a few seconds past, the door opened to reveal a man with ruffled brown hair and blue eyes who looked to be in his early to mid forties. Evelyn was surprised to see that, while she ever really thought about the fact that neither she nor Ethan looked like their mother, other than their green eyes, they did seem to get their looks from their father. He looked over them quickly, running a hand through his hair.
"Hello." He said gruffly. Evelyn and Ethan exchanged a look, but Mrs. Brandy said brightly.
"Hello Mr. Grant! It's so good to meet you in person! I'm so glad that you were willing to take the kids on such short notice." She then turned to the twins and gestured at them. "This is Evelyn and Ethan. I only had enough room in my car for them to have one bag of luggage a piece, but I can send the rest of their things via shipping, or you are more than welcome to visit Denver to get their things personally, if that's the better option." She said all this very cheerfully. Alan eyed her before opening the door to let them in,
"Shipping them over should be fine." He said shortly. Mrs. Brandy gave him a bright smile
"Excellent." She then turned to the twins. "Well, it was a pleasure getting to know you two. Hope you keep in contact with me. I'll be back in a week to make sure you're all settled in and doing okay. Good day everyone." She said before walking back to her car to leave.
The trio watched her leave in slight disbelief that she was just going to drop two kids off with an unknown adult and disappear before making sure everything would be fine, before turning to study each other. After a few moments of awkward silence Alan cleared his throat and motioned for them to follow him inside.
"Well, come on in then, I'll show you to your rooms." The twins exchanged another look of dread before following his lead. The trio was silent on the quick journey down the hall to two doors on opposite sides of the hall.
"So, these are your rooms." He paused and looked uncomfortable for a moment. "I, uh, didn't decorate, but one used to be my office. If you need anything for either room just tell me." The twins nodded and silently opened the doors, Ethan going to one side and Evelyn the other. Ethan's room was a light tan color and Evelyn's was a light green. The two quickly put their suitcases inside each room before turning back to their father.
"Thanks." The twins chimed quietly. He nodded and pointed to the other two doors in the hallway.
"The one on the left is my room, the one on the right is the bathroom. The kitchen is just through the living room. And that's about it. I, ah, I got you two enrolled as sophomores in the high school, you'll start next week." The twins nodded in understanding before the three fell into an awkward silence once again.
It was their father that broke it.
"Well, I'll just leave you two to unpack. I'll make dinner at 5:30." He muttered before wandering off into the living room. The twins shared a look of resignation before turning into their rooms to put their things away. When they were done, Ethan wandered into Evelyn's room and sat down on her plain single bed.
"Well…" He trailed off.
"This is going to be along two years." Evelyn sighed in agreement.
"Especially if things stay this awkward the whole time." Ethan nodded. The twins fell silent, both hoping that things worked out sooner rather than later.
A/N: Remember to review please!