"Owen…"
At the sound of his name, Owen immediately turned to Claire and caught her as she swayed in the hospital plastic chair, her head falling on his shoulder. Maisie was asleep on his other side, dead to the world and half sprawled on her own chair, half lying in Owen's lap. The girl initially wanted to snuggle to Claire, but didn't want to aggravate her injuries, so she went to sit next to Owen instead.
She had been awfully quiet during the whole hour it took them to drive to the nearest hospital, Owen insisting Claire got her leg checked up. It worried him that Claire hadn't put up a fight, that she was so hurt and tired that she could barely keep her eyes open.
"I… what are we going to do about her?" Claire asked, her voice barely above a whisper and Owen had to strain his ears to understand what she was saying.
"Well, I thought we could keep her," he answered, one glance at the little girl telling him she was still sound asleep, her mouth just occasionally twitching as her brows furrowed because of some nightmare.
"I don't know if we can… the law…"
"I'll be damned if they take her from us."
He felt Claire smile in his shoulder and he dropped a kiss to her hair.
"Whatever it takes, we'll fight for her Claire. She trusts us."
"Good."
He forced Claire to stay awake, telling her embarrassing stories about his youth, some of which she already knew. She remained mostly silent, but he knew she was listening from the way her breath caught sometimes or how she would smile or frown against his dirty shirt. She didn't move even once, as if the simple thought of moving her injured leg was too unpleasant.
A doctor took them rather quickly to a room nearby, Owen taking Maisie in his arms. The girl didn't even stir, exhausted beyond measure. Claire made the doctor promise to take a look at her once she was awake before she even allowed him to take a look at her own leg. From the look on the doctor's face, Owen immediately knew that Claire's injury was worse than what he thought and he cursed himself for his carelessness.
Claire hadn't showed any immediate sign of suffering, keeping her mouth tightly shut during the whole drive and biting the inside of her cheek whenever they hit a bump in the road. Zia did a decent patch-up job with their limited supplies before she left for San Francisco with Franklin to meet with their families, but Claire required a full surgery and fast. She was scheduled within the hour.
When a nurse had come with a wheelchair to take Claire so she could get prepped for the surgery, it was almost as if Owen was losing her all over again. He lost her once in the year following the Jurassic World incident, both of them too stubborn for their own good. And he almost lost her at least a dozen times on the island and in the Lockwood mansion. He was not going to let that happen again.
But he couldn't come with her and he couldn't leave Maisie.
He felt like the kiss they shared, rushed and desperate, as she was sat in the wheelchair, was the last he would ever get to experience with her. He could read the fear, plain as day in her eyes, and squeezed her hand before she was wheeled away, looking at him for as long as she could.
"Watch over her," was the last thing she said before her red mane disappeared around the corner.