For Christmas, you're getting what I guess is now an AU piece of Christmas fluff. I hope you enjoy.
Disclaimer: Definitely not mine. If it was mine, the years leading up to Fallen Kingdom would have gone in a very different direction!
One
The first time he doesn't wake up in his childhood bedroom on Christmas morning, unpack stockings with the family and sit around the big old farmhouse table in the only place he's ever known as home, he's 19 years old, and it's his first year of military college. He's like any other boy of that age, having finally 'flown the nest' and suddenly with endless independence he doesn't quite know what to do with yet. The two week Christmas break at the academy marks the first time since he's been there he hasn't been controlled by all the rules and regulations, the first time their every waking minute hasn't been accounted for.
And he's heard the stories the older boys tell about the Christmas break if they stay. It seems the skeleton staff that remain forget for two weeks only that they're conditioning the next generation of armed forces veterans, and allow a little less structure, a little more frivolity and a lot more alcohol. From the moment the idea presented itself to Owen, he didn't even consider the choice. He's a grown up, now, he's hoping for an early graduation and to be posted overseas before his 21st birthday, and no one really needs him for Christmas at home, do they? Carla's fourteen now, the magic of Christmas must be long forgotten, and he's sure she's fed up by this age of the overbearing, almost parental big brother, whether she admits it or not.
He stays on campus for Christmas, drinks what must be nearing his body weight in tequila (after that year, he doesn't touch the stuff for nearly a decade), and doesn't regret his decision for more than a moment, only as he cracks an eye open on Christmas morning and for barely a second expects the familiarity he's had his whole life.
Carla feels like there should be someone by her side that whole day, really. Despite his babying, protective to the point of infuriating nature, she wouldn't have her brother any other way. And over the last few years, as she's been busy thinking she's about as mature as everyone else, he's been laughing with her, at her, and reducing her almost to tears with his uncanny, hilarious impression of their weird old Uncle Melvin.
This year's the first year she doesn't have anyone to laugh with.
Two
The next time he can't make it home for Christmas is entirely different. He's halfway across the world, in the warzone that has suddenly become the centre of international news. Only months after an incident that rocked the world, Owen spends the Christmas when he's twenty-two in Afghanistan, in a base camp only a mile and a half from some of the worse conflict.
He's newly qualified, and came walking out of all of those years of training with his head held so high, so proud, and in reality he had no idea what it was all going to be like. He shipped out before he'd even had the chance to come down from his fully fledged, fully qualified high, and he'd been living in a whirlwind of fear and blistering heat and death for the last months.
But he's due home for some leave early in the new year, and this career is all he ever wanted, from when he was very young – it's just going to take some getting used to. And all in all, it's everything he hoped it would be, and more. He's particularly enjoying getting involved in some of the dog training for identifying explosives. He thinks he'll attempt to specialise towards that area when he gets his chance.
But Christmas morning, as he lines up and salutes, he feels suddenly like he's a pawn, in a battle far bigger than anything he could ever have comprehended, and while he's appreciated as a young man prepared to risk his life for his country, no one knows Owen, not really, he's not valued as a person. He feels a lump in his throat as he misses Carla crashing through his bedroom door, no matter how old they're getting, eager for him to open her gift, which is always something between exactly what he didn't realise he wanted and something that has him doubled over in side-splitting laughter.
He wonders what they're doing right now, mid-evening on Christmas Eve, everything ahead of them. Hours and a lifetime away, it seems. As he washes and cleans his teeth he hopes they're not spending too long worrying about him, too long thinking about him, even.
He wishes, right now, he was sipping hot chocolate in front of the fire with everyone he loves by his side.
Sarah Grady runs a hand absent-mindedly through her hair as she makes the drinks, her mind thousands of miles away, with her only son.
She'd spent his whole childhood dreading this day, but she'd somehow always known it was coming, he'd spent so much of his life so determined – and when Owen was determined, there was little to be done to stop him. But so young, and still so naïve in her eyes, and out in the centre of it all, in a world she's not even sure she knows anymore, not after this September.
She swallows, lifting the tray of hot chocolates and coffees and walking back to the fire to join her husband and daughter.
She's never spent a Christmas fearing for her son's life before.
Three
Ever since he took the Jurassic World job, it had been apparent to everyone around him that it was going to be more than a full time commitment, it was going to be a whole new way of life. But he hadn't thought about it quite like that, he hadn't quite imagined he'd be spending Christmas nursing four newly hatched velociraptors, and not toasting to families and Christmas cheer and another healthy year with his parents, Carla and John and these last couple of years, little Harry.
Little Harry, who held a large chunk of the space in Owen's heart that had once been entirely devoted to his dear little sister. Ever since Carla had gone and grown up, gotten married and given him a nephew, Owen had started to see the attraction in children, after a whole existence being slightly unsure what all the fuss was about. Harry was a quirky little character with his uncle's passion for the outdoors and spur of the moment decisions that were often regrettable afterwards – climbing trees and not realising quite how high they were until you looked down a particular favourite.
As Owen passes mice to all four raptors, he considers briefly that this year he's devoting his Christmas to half-parenting in an altogether different way to being 'cool Uncle Owen' to his nephew.
He'll take the next holiday possible and make sure he flies out to Connecticut to see his sister and her newly constructed perfect family.
Harry won't stop pouting, because Nanny's just told him Uncle Owen won't be joining them this year, and that was definitely his most important reasons for waking up before the crack of dawn this Christmas morning, that he was hoping to surprise Uncle Owen when he arrived, if not the only reason.
He'd been hoping Uncle Owen would help him finally make it to the top of the big old Christmas tree at the bottom of the Grady garden, and he's sure Uncle Owen would stick pigs in blankets up his nose again and get told off by his Mommy for making him laugh about something 'so silly' at the dinner table. He'd been looking forward to that.
Folding his arms, Harry's sure that Uncle Owen can't have anywhere better to be.
Four
As he hears the storm beating down on the tin roof of the bunker, Owen grimaces and wishes all the lines weren't out and he could make contact home. He knows an official message has been sent, but he'd love to hear Claire's voice and he's sure she deserves to hear his apology for not being able to make it home for Christmas, and he might even bring a smile to her face when he admits she was right and he never should have come on this rescue op, Blue's nowhere to be seen.
They're only just found their way into their own homemade domesticity, renting a little house in Wisconsin whilst he looks for the right spot for the cabin he's going to build, when he heard about the ops going back to Isla Nublar, to recover, count and document all the remaining dinosaurs, before leaving them to go about their own lives without further human interference. And although he was bouncing back from the powder keg of trauma that happened that summer, the opportunity to find and give Blue his final goodbyes was too tempting.
She begged him not to go, not to set foot back on that island, not to put her through the sleepless nights she would spend with him back on their proverbial front line, but he hadn't even been able to listen.
They'd parted on good terms, after weeks of fighting, but he'd seen the fear in her eyes as she'd kissed him goodbye, and he wondered, as he had many times in the last months, what he'd ever done to deserve the sudden, overwhelming love of that woman, despite all his flaws.
As it was, they'd found themselves a few herbivores before the storm had set in, and now they were holed up in the bunker with no lines of communication, an aborted mission and no way home for at least four days, until the other side of Christmas.
He'd had a chance, he'd found himself a new imperfectly perfect reality, and he'd been stupid enough to risk spending Christmas in it. He shakes his head at himself, raising a glass of whiskey with the rest of the rescue team, wishing more than anything that he was holed up with that fiery red head he'd never expected to fall in love with.
She replays the words in her head over and over: the mission's aborted, everyone's safe, they're not in any danger, they'll be heading home as soon as it's possible, but all she can think of is how, despite everything, despite the fact that the happiness she's found is with the completely infuriating Owen Grady, she wants nothing more than to be curled up in his arms on Christmas morning, with the perfectly legitimate option of spending the whole day with him in bed if she wanted to.
He had to go and trek back to that island, he had to go and risk his life again, and he had to end up holed up in an underground bunker for the holiday period, with nothing but dried rescue mission supplies and her silver chain round his neck, to remind him she's thinking of him.
He's always infuriated her, Owen Grady, and she's probably completely clinically insane for letting him come crashing into her life, so deep into her heart, but right now, she wishes he was infuriating her from right by her side, not anywhere else.
Five
Claire straightens the angel on top of the Christmas tree almost absentmindedly, drinking the dregs of her evening coffee before setting it down beside the sink and considering heading upstairs to an empty bed for Christmas Eve night. Ever since Owen had finished it, the cabin had always felt empty without two people in it, despite it not being very big. Karen will be over to spend the day with her tomorrow, drinking copious amounts of gin and commiserating their lonely Christmases (the boys are spending Christmas with Scott and his new family, much to their annoyance), and although Owen's spent the last three years by her side on Christmas Day, after the storm incident on Isla Nublar that first year, this year he's taken some work back in the Navy, and he's on some Naval intelligence base somewhere in the South Pacific.
She'd known this one was coming for months, but that doesn't make it any easier. She's gotten so disconcertingly comfortable with having him by her side throughout her life, not just at Christmas, that without him somehow feels alien, now. She smiles a little to herself as she climbs the stairs, considering how if you'd told her five years ago she would be unable to pull herself out of her blues for lack of Owen Grady, she would have laughed at you. Funny how things change.
She hears a noise from the front door then, and immediately finds herself on edge – it's been four and a half long years, but she doesn't suppose she'll ever fully get rid of that ability to fire up all her senses and switch on panic mode in an instant, after the experience she had. And there shouldn't be anyone at the door at this time of night, at this time of year. The cabin's near enough in the middle of nowhere (that took her a long time to accept), and it's below freezing outside.
As the door opens, for a moment her heart stops in her chest, and in hindsight she'll consider maybe it's because there's only one person it really can be, and maybe she always suspected.
As Owen steps wearily through the door, tanned a shade close to ridiculous with the sprinkling of snow outside, she barrels down the stairs and flings her arms around him, suddenly giddy. She feels almost childlike as he wraps her up completely in his arms, pressing his face into her hair, and she feels the slightly imprint of his smile.
"You're home." She breathes, pushing her face up and pressing her lips against his. "You weren't coming home."
He gives her a wry smile, thumbing her cheek. "I had to beg everyone I could think of to get here."
She kisses him again, cheeks flushing. "Thank you." She whispers, lacing the fingers of one hand through his. "You didn't have to."
He cocks an eyebrow, but she thinks she catches an apprehension in his eyes. "I had something I had to do." He half-whispers, and the fear's catching in his voice now, and it stills her.
He swallows, as if convincing himself of something.
"I had a question to ask." He breathes, and it's her turn to raise an eyebrow. She can feel his heart hammering in his chest.
"Will you marry me, Claire?"
His voice sounds steadier than he'd been expecting, and far more confident than he clearly is; his hand's shaking on the side of her face, his eyes are wide and nervous.
She feels her own heart racing to mirror his, but for a thousand different reasons, and she gives him a wide smile before she speaks.
"Aren't you supposed to have a ring and get down on your knee or something?"
He looks a little confused, but a tentative smile starts stretching his lips.
"Is that a yes?"
She laughs, and presses feather light kisses to his cheekbone, his jaw, his lips. "Of course it is." She smiles, "If I was going anywhere I would have gone somewhere a long time ago, Owen, stopped you building me a house…." That infectious giggle echoes slightly in the cabin lobby. "I just want to see you doing it properly, that's all…"
He laughs, catching her lips, his teeth grazing her bottom lips, igniting a hunger in both of them. "I should have known you'd expect nothing less than the best. Only the best for Claire Dearing…"
He sinks to one knee, wincing slightly, and fumbles in his wallet for a moment before holding up a beautiful silver ring, with three diamonds reflecting the Christmas lights all around the door.
"Marry me, Claire."
"Oh my god, yes." She gushes, and as she leans towards him he stands and she's in his arms and he's sliding the ring on her finger and it's Christmas and she's not on her own, she's in the arms of the man she's been planning on spending the rest of her life with for at least a year now, only it's finally become completely official. She pulls back, threading her fingers back through his.
"I was just going to bed, Mr Grady, if you fancied joining me… unless you're too tired from all your travels…"
The corners of his mouth turn at the pet name, and he growls slightly as he leans towards her, crushing his lips against hers with a hunger she's been missing.
"I've found a sudden new bout of energy." He chuckles, the laugh rumbling against her, and she feels a fire building inside her.
She leads him up the stairs, his hand never leaving hers.
Fin
Hope you enjoyed! I decided to take it to crazy AU after the events of JW, because Maisie doesn't have a place in this story and what good committed Clawen shipper doesn't love a world where they never broke up between movies? Hope this little canon gives you the appropriately sickening Christmas fluff I was intending.
Merry Christmas, or Happy Holidays, everyone. Think of a review as a nice little Christmas gift?