Chapter Two

Flashback-1973-Junior Prom

It was prom night. The night every teenage girl would look forward to in her life.

At least, that's what you're told.

My dress was tasteful. A V-neck line with a black border and a plain white dress, it showed everything off in all the right places. But it wasn't exactly slutty. My heels were black and only two inches tall.

It was supposed to be a great night. It's prom. It's supposed to be one of the happiest nights of your life.

Unless your date is one Joey Windsor and he fucking ditches you in the middle of the dance.

I stood at the sink in the girls' bathroom, crying my eyes out. Mascara, eyeliner and whatever else that was I had on was running down my face. It made black streaks on my cheeks, and I honestly thought I looked like something out of a kid's nightmare. My hair fell into my face, and I quickly brushed it away, trying to wipe the mascara stains off my face and smearing it more in the process.

"Fuck..." I whispered. There were a few knocks on the door and I sighed, shaking my head. "It's occupied!" I tried to hold back the sobs.

"Kerri, open the door."

I stared at myself in the mirror, my eyebrows furrowed. "Ian?"

"No, Tarzan. Who do you think?"

"This is the girls' bathroom, Ian. You're not allowed in here." I rolled my eyes.

"Watch me."

"Ian-" I started, turning. The lock clicked, and Ian opened the door, one of his date's bobby pins in his hand.

"Hi." He shut the door and locked it again. "Are you okay?" he walked over to me, a look of concern etched on his face.

"What do you think?" I crossed my arms and looked at him. He wore one of those powder blue suits and white bowties. I looked at his face, and his dark eyes had genuine concern in them.

"Joey Windsor?"

I nodded mutely. He sighed and shook his head.

"I tried to warn you." he began to scold. I scoff.

"Please. Like you would've taken me instead of Julianne Harper to the prom anyway." I shook my head and messed with my corsage, wanting to take it off and burn it.

"I would've."

"Don't lie to make me feel better."

His hand gently cupped my face and had me face him. For once in his life, Ian Malcolm was serious. As serious as a fucking heart attack. "I would've."

"Then why did you take her...?"

"Because..." he shrugged. "I wanted to make you jealous. That and she wouldn't leave me alone about it."

"You wanted to make me jealous? Come on, Ian. Don't-"

He shut me up by crashing his lips to mine.

Present Day-1993

We landed and picked up two more scientists along with Hammond. They got into the helicopter the best they could with the limited space. One was a young, blonde woman who wore a salmon colored button up shirt, khakis, hiking boots and either a dark purple or blue undershirt, I wasn't sure of which color. The other was a man, who was pretty quiet when he got on here. He wore a blue button up shirt similar to the woman's, khakis and the same kind of boots. On his head, he wore a hat-I'm sure it was to keep the sun out of his eyes. In his hand he had some type of claw. It was large, had to be from a dinosaur-a carnivore no less.
Hammond was dressed in all white and now had a cane he walked with. On his face sat round glasses and a white, very well-kept beard. I couldn't exactly make out what the top of the cane was made of yet, but I was really curious.

"Ian, how are you?" Hammond greeted him. "Kerri, how nice to see you again." he smiled at me, shaking my hand for a moment. I smiled back at him.

"Nice to see you too, Mr. Hammond."

"This is a pleasant surprise." As he said this, I smirked at Gennaro, who rolled his eyes. "I have with me two top scientists in their field. This is Dr. Ellie Sattler, a paleobotanist, and Dr. Alan Grant, a paleontologist."

"Nice to meet you." I smiled kindly at them.

"Hi." Ellie smiled at me, while Grant nodded his head. There were a lot of things I wanted to know-this field has always interested me-but I kept my questions to myself. Ian, however, didn't.

"So, you two dig up-dig up dinosaurs?" he asked. The woman laughed.

"Well..." she started.

"We try to." the man said quietly. Ian chuckled oddly, like he was trying to force it out but at the same time he wasn't. The man and woman looked at each other, the woman trying not to laugh any more than she already has. Hammond looked at them.

"You'll have to get used to Dr. Malcolm. He suffers from a deplorable excess of personality." He looked at Ian. "Especially for a mathematician."

"Chaotician. Chaotician, actually." Ian corrected him.

"Same thing." I smirked, knowing this would set him off.

"It is not the same thing, Kerri. Chaos Theory and math have absolutely nothing to do with each other."

"I beg to differ." I giggle.

Ian rolled his eyes at me, hiding a smile. "John doesn't subscribe to chaos. Particularly of what it says about his science project."

"Codswallop, Ian, you've never been able to sufficiently explain your concerns." Hammond said.

"Because of the behavior of the system in phase space?"

"A load, if I may say some of fashionable, number crunching-" Ian placed his hand on Hammond's knee and squeezed it lightly, making Hammond smack his hand and move it away. "Don't! You promised you wouldn't do that!"

Ian ignored him. "Dr. Sattler, Dr. Grant, you've heard of Chaos Theory?"

"Here he goes." I whispered. Ian placed a hand on my knee, squeezing it like he did Hammond. I let out squeal of laughter before smacking his arm. "That's not nice!'

"Who said I was nice?" Ian looked at me. I laughed quietly. He turned back to the other two scientists. Ellie was shaking her head, trying to hide a smile.

"No."

This took my ex-husband by surprise. "No? Non-linear equations? Strange attractions?" He cocked his head a little. "Dr. Sattler, I refuse to believe that you aren't familiar with the concept of attraction."

At this, Dr. Sattler smiled and turned her head. I stared at Ian for a moment before biting my lip and looking around. Jealousy began to bubble up inside of me. Maybe Sattler wasn't as pretty as I originally thought she was. Hammond chuckled at her reaction.

"I bring scientists, you bring a rock star." He said to Gennaro. Gennaro went to retort but Hammond's expression of, what I thought, excitement cut him off. He pointed out the window opposite of him. "There it is." he grinned.

There were plants and other foliage on either side of us on the mountains. It truly was beautiful.

"Bad wind shears. We have to drop pretty fast. So, hold on. This will be a little thrilling." Hammond told us. Right after that, we felt a jerk and the whole helicopter bounced up and down. I squeaked and grabbed on to my seat, beginning to white knuckle it a bit. "Yahoo!" the older man exclaimed before laughing. We all began to put our seatbelts on. Mine was caught on one of my belt loops and it took me a moment to get it free.

"Need some help?" Ian offered.

"No!" I told him, and it came out harsher than expected. Ian put his on before making a cat like noise and hissing at me. I glared at him as I buckled my seatbelt. Dr. Grant seemed to be in a dilemma, though. After we had all of ours buckled, he had found his had two of the same thing. He stared at it for a moment before putting them together a couple of times, trying to see if it would work. Hammond reached over, trying to help.

"But you need that piece over here, and that piece... Look, we'll have landed by the time you get it right."

Alan tied the seatbelt together. "Great..." He muttered. We landed, and Hammond was the first person out. Gennaro was second, looking as if he might throw up. Alan and Sattler were next, and I after them, leaving Ian in the dust to get out by himself. A couple of Jeeps backed up to where we were as I looked around. This place was like its own little world. It was absolutely beautiful.

Little did I know.

1973

The Monday after prom was eventful. And I mean eventful.

I was known as "The Sobbing Girl" that night who was "not in her right mind to keep Ian Malcolm away from his date all night" and on many accounts of what had happened I had "lured Ian into the girls' bathroom to have sex" so that I wouldn't be "the only virgin left in school".

I hate idiots.

Not to mention, Joey Windsor was being even more of an asshole than usual. He gave me smirks here and there and when he saw me with Ian, he'd do a sex motion with his hands or mime a blowjob being done. It pissed Ian off to no end-and trust me, I wasn't a happy camper about it either-and I had to stop him from getting in a fight more than once.

"Just one. Just one punch. I'll stop after that. Just one punch." he pleaded to me after American History class. I shook my head.

"Ian, you'll just get waist deep in shit. It's better to just let it drop. We have only a month or so of school left. Just drop it."

"I can't drop it when I, ah, when I see his face smirking at me across the classroom."

"Ian." I crossed my arms and leaned on the lockers. "Just... Don't. For me. Please?"

With a sigh and a nod, Ian agreed. "Alright. Alright. For you. But you know there's-there's no guarantees."

"With you, Ian Malcolm, there never is." I smiled softly.

That promise lasted until his chemistry class. It was the last period of the day, though it hadn't started. I had algebra class that was set across the hall and started my way inside when people started to flock to the middle of the hall. I looked around, setting my stuff down and following the crowd. In the middle was a shock of dark hair and bright blonde hair. I felt a pit in my stomach when I realized who it was.

"God dammit, Ian." I muttered under my breath.

I saw Ian give Joey a quick bloody nose, sending the popular kid into the lockers with a loud clang. Ian stood upright, his clothes torn and a scratch on his right cheek-obviously made by Joey's class ring-and his hair disshelved. Joey gawked at him for a moment, stunned, wondering how this tall and lanky kid could have broken his nose and knocked him into the lockers with such force. I wouldn't have doubted Ian for a second in a fight-he always kicked my ass at arm wrestling-but other kids at school obviously did. They had no idea how strong Ian really was.

While the cheers and cries of people wanting more from the fight got louder and louder and the faculty of the school making their way down the hall, I pushed my way through the crowd, grabbed Ian by his t-shirt and dragged him away and into the chemistry class.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I shut the door. A boy sat in the far corner of the room, beginning to listen to our conversation. I gave him the evil eye. "Out. This is private."
This kid didn't hesitate twice and made his way out of the class. "Go. Lean on the counter by the sink, I'm going to clean you up."

"I'm a big boy, I can take care of myself." Ian snapped, but doing what he was told to do anyway.

"Obviously not. I told you not to fight. And what did you do? You got into a fight." I followed him, yanking a piece of a brown paper towel off the roll before wetting it. "Do you know how stupid that is? In a week's time, at least, everyone would've forgotten about it."

"How do you know?" Ian held his right cheek. It was obvious he was going to be sore tomorrow, maybe even have a bruise.

"Ian." I looked at him, gently moving his hand and pressing the wet cloth to the scratch he had received during the fight. "Look around you. This whole school has idiots inside of its walls. We are completely surrounded by idiots." I cleaned out his wound. He hissed a little at the pain-after all, most small scratches sting more than the big ones, depending on how you got them.

"I can believe that." he sighed quietly. I shook my head.

"Why did you get in a fight?" I threw the cloth unceremoniously on the counter. "I mean, there had to be some reason."

"He pissed me off, isn't that reason enough?" Ian crossed his arms.

"Nope." I shook my head. He sighed, not looking at me. I poked his arm, making him look at me. "Give me the real reason. Not some bullshit you just came up with."

"He..." Ian rubbed the back of his neck, not meeting my eyes. "He kept saying shit about you."

"Like what?" I pressed.

"Like how you were a born-again whore who would stop at nothing to get what she wanted. How you were the one who abandoned him at prom instead of him leaving you." I stared at him.

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

"I overheard him, so no-no, I'm not."

"What a motherfucking crock of shit!" I yelled, getting angry. I was about ready to go punch him out myself.

"That's what I said." Ian sighed quietly. "So, I defended you. He had no right to say what he did. I felt like I should've done something." he paused for a moment, shrugging. "So, I did."

I smiled a bit. "Ian?"

"What?" He returned my smile.

"You're a fucking idiot, you know, that right?"

He laughed. "Yeah. Yeah, I know."

The helicopter flew away as we drove into the park. Ian, Alan, Ellie and I were in one Jeep, Gennaro and Hammond were in the other. I looked around.

"This place is beautiful..." I breathed. Sattler furrowed her eyebrows, snatching a leaf and holding it in her hands. We made it to an open meadow before stopping.

"This shouldn't be here..." I heard the blonde scientist say to herself.

"Look at this place, Ian," my anger towards him gone. "God damn, it's beautiful. It's like it's untouched by man, somehow, you know? Like-ow!" Ian smacked me on the arm. "What?"

"Look." he said, with a surprised look on his face. I turned and looked. My mouth dropped open.

"Oh, my sweet baby Jesus..." I muttered as Alan stood and yanked off his aviator sunglasses.

"Alan, this species of Veriforman has been extinct since the Cretaceous Period. I mean, this thing..." Sattler stopped rambling about that leaf when Alan grabbed her head and turned it. "What?"

And that was when the realization dawned on her face. Her mouth dropped open and she, too, took off her sunglasses and stood.

A Brachiosaurus walked past us, bellowing as it reached for a branch on a tree. Both Sattler and Alan got out of the Jeep and walked to it. A chuckling Hammond followed them.

"You did it." Ian muttered. "Crazy son of a bitch, you did it."

I stared at him. "You knew about this?" I asked.

"I only knew he was looking for DNA for some science experiment. I never knew it was going to amount to... This."

The dino bellowed again before standing on its hind legs to reach higher leaves. It fell back forward, and the ground shook slightly.

"This is... This is amazing..." I said quietly. "It's like being back in all those eras. Seeing these dinosaurs and how they interact... I love it..." I grinned. Ian looked at me. I didn't notice. I was still gawking at this beautiful prehistoric animal.