A/N: Chapter three! Woohoo! Thanks, as always, for reading, reviewing, favoriting, and supporting this story. My days have been swamped lately so I can't always write as much as I'd like to, but your encouragement always keeps me going. So thank you so much! This is going to be a short series, much like Home for the Weekend was, so I don't anticipate more than a couple more chapters. I hope you like it so far and please tell me what you think!
The nightmares were vague by now and Zach couldn't recall much more than sensations and feelings when he woke. He was only somewhat aware of the bad dreams. They all blended into a murky, gray haze that hung just out of reach as he slept and they no longer roused him from his slumber, causing him to sit up, panicking and drenched in sweat and trying desperately to catch his breath. Colors. Sounds. That's all he remembered in the morning.
Maybe that's why he knew something was wrong. It was too vivid. He felt like he was falling momentarily as the bed dipped and a distinct, creeping sensation as little pinpricks worked their way up his exposed arm. This was too real to be a dream. The teen's eyes snapped open and his heart skipped a beat when he came face-to-face with his brother's blue eyes and mischievous, gap-toothed grin.
"Aah!" Zach exclaimed, involuntarily jerking backwards. Gray burst out laughing and the older brother frowned, looking past the boy and spotting Claire desperately trying to conceal her own mischievous smirk behind her hand. "Not funny," he groused, sitting up indignantly and shoving his brother's shoulder lightly.
"Aunt Claire put me up to it," the younger brother insisted.
Claire's hands fell to her hips as her nephew threw her under the bus. "Gray!" she cried, but made no effort to deny it.
Zach rolled his eyes, threw the covers over himself, and rolled onto his side, mumbling something incoherent into his pillow.
"Well since you're up," Claire sauntered slowly into the room, sly smirk returning as Gray prodded at his brother's side. "Gray and I were talking and decided we should go hiking today. What do you think?"
"I think it's too early to be up," the teenager replied.
"Oh, c'mon," Gray pleaded. "It'll be fun. Please?"
Zach opened one eye, took in his younger brother's puppy-dog eyes and let out a sigh. "Fine," he agreed. "But would you get off me?"
"Yes!" the boy pumped his fists in victory and slid off the mattress. The older Mitchell sat up and rubbed his eyes tiredly, double-checking the clock on the nightstand that read 9:12 in glaring, red digital numbers.
"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon!" Gray urged. "Get up!"
Zach yawned and made a big show of stretching his arms, then rolling his neck and shoulders, and by the time he was stretching out his legs, Gray had figured out the game he was playing and latched onto his older brother's bicep. "Get! Up!" he tugged.
"Okay, I'm up!" Zach huffed, a smile tugging at his lips as he rolled out of the mattress at the pace of molasses and his brother looked ready to burst.
"So hiking," Owen dropped a plate heaped with bacon on the dining table and watched as his nephews ripped into it before he could even sit down. "Lucky for you we live in the middle of the woods. Lots of trails around here. I know a great little hiking trail about ten minutes from here. Hardly anybody ever goes there but it's beautiful."
"I'm game," Zach replied.
"Are there animals?" Gray questioned.
" 'S the woods, buddy. Course there's animals. Might not see that many but they're there."
"But what kind?"
Owen smiled. "Guess we'll have to wait 'n see."
Claire picked up a piece of bacon and ripped pieces off for herself. "I spoke to your dad yesterday," she quietly changed the subject. Both Zach and Gray perked up and even Owen seemed a little surprised by this information. "I forgot to mention it yesterday." Her plate had suddenly become very interesting and her eyes didn't leave the porcelain, intently studying the drops of maple syrup that hadn't quite made it onto her waffle. "He wanted to talk to you but you were both out so…I asked if he'd like to come here this evening. Just to visit for a bit." She picked her eyes up for the first time and found Owen's face first. The table was suddenly very quiet. "I hope that's alright," she said, nibbling on another small piece of bacon.
"Yeah," Owen recovered quickly. "Of course it's alright. I don't think Scott's ever even seen the house before." She relaxed minutely, searching her nephews' faces for any indication of dissent.
Gray just shrugged. "Cool," he answered, sweeping his fork up once more.
"I mean if you're cool having him here then we're cool with him being here," Zach replied.
Claire let out an audible breath of relief and shuffled some food around her plate. "Good." She brightened. "So we'll go hiking, come back, your dad's coming tonight…"
"And you're coming with us," there was a hint of questioning at the end of Gray's sentence.
"Yes, of course I'm coming. I wouldn't miss it for the world." Claire smiled but there was a grimace hidden somewhere beneath it.
"So when are you gonna tell the boys? That you might get relocated, I mean." Owen was tugging on his jeans and buckling his belt while Claire searched through her closet for something to wear hiking. She settled on a green, short-sleeved button-down and shrugged into it, emerging from the walk-in with a pair of black jeans draped over one arm.
"If they decide to relocate me, I'll tell them," she said adamantly. "But I don't want them to be worried. There's no reason for them to worry yet."
"They're gonna find out if you have to miss another day. You know that, right? They already know something isn't right."
"I'm not going to miss another day with them," Claire promised. "My phone's been off all morning. I won't look at it until we get back from the trails today." She removed her shorts and pulled the jeans over her legs.
"You think of a compromise yet? If they decide to move you?" Owen pulled a cream-colored polo over his head.
The redhead sighed dejectedly. "Not yet. I've been trying to come up with something but I can't stop thinking about how badly I don't want to go to San Diego." Before the events of Jurassic World, before she had reconnected with her family, before she settled down, before Zach and Gray, before Owen, Claire would have leapt at the chance to move to San Diego. If Masrani wanted her at their West Coast headquarters, surely a promotion was on the horizon. The thought would have excited her and she would have killed for the chance. Now, the idea terrified and revolted her.
"Remember," Owen pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead, "they need you, Red. You got one hell of a bargaining chip here."
Claire smiled wanly. "If it comes down to it, I just hope they feel the same way." She paused, drew in a breath, fastened her belt and double-checked the buttons on her shirt. "Okay, can we agree to not talk about this in front of Zach and Gray? Please?"
"I won't tell if you won't," Owen promised.
They parked the black SUV at the trailhead, a dusty shoulder bumped out from the quiet, wooded street. The only other vehicle parked there was a station wagon with a bike rack. Towering silver maples and yellow birches shaded path—a dirt trail that wound through the woods, dipped and rose with the landscape. The towering trees stretched endlessly in front of them, rustling with each breezy gust. A squirrel scurried past, leapt onto one of the maples and shimmied up the trunk, vanishing somewhere amongst its branches.
Gray inhaled the scent of the woods, the trees, the smell that could only really be found in nature. It wasn't an unfamiliar smell. Just one that he didn't experience too often. When he was younger, his dad had promised him and Zach they'd go camping. But things came up and the camping trip never materialized. His mom wasn't a fan of nature, perpetually worried about sunburn or bug bites or ticks. So they didn't go into the woods much and the majority of his outdoor experience came from their fenced backyard, where he could pretend he was a dinosaur hunter and grouses became pterosaurs and squirrels became raptors. He didn't pretend that now.
A hand closed over his shoulder and when he turned, Zach was standing next to him, eyes searching the treetops, following birds that darted from branch to branch, tree to tree. There was an expression on his face that Gray couldn't quite place—the look his older brother always got when he was thinking about something, really thinking.
"What is it?" the younger brother asked, stirring the elder from his pensiveness. Zach looked at him as if noticing him there for the first time, cast a backwards glance to his aunt and uncle who were rummaging in the trunk of the car for water bottles.
"C'mon," he jerked his head toward one of the trees a little way off from the adults and guided Gray over to it.
"What's wrong?" the younger Mitchell appeared concerned now.
"Just…I was thinking. About what you said yesterday at the Union before we went windsurfing."
The boy remembered. He remembered voicing his concern that their aunt was becoming more and more distant. He remembered worrying that things would soon go back to the way they were before—Aunt Claire only calling on their birthdays or at Christmas, never seeing her or Owen. But Zach had been adamant that things would never get to that point again and his confidence had reassured him. Gray bit his lip anxiously and kept his eyes planted on the ground, inspecting the streaks of dirt and the scuffs on the beat-up Nikes he had worn because he didn't have hiking boots. "You said everything was gonna be okay," the boy pointed out.
Zach leaned against the tree, avoided eye contact with his brother, fixed his gaze at a point somewhere down the trail. "I know what I said. But…I dunno. Something's bothering Aunt Claire. She's being too quiet."
It was everything Gray had already noticed but Zach had willfully ignored in the hopes that things would be better by today. "She said something came up," the younger brother offered as if that could explain why Claire was acting so strange.
"But she won't tell us what it is," the teen replied. "Something's wrong."
"What do you think it is?"
"I don't know! But it's bad, Gray. Did you notice how upset she looks lately?" Gray wanted to cut Zach off and point out that these were all observations he'd made and offered up for evidence yesterday but he decided against it. His older brother was coming around to his point. That was the important thing here. Zach would know what to do. Zach could fix it. He would demand to know what was wrong, ask the right questions to Aunt Claire and Uncle Owen, figure out what was happening.
"Maybe she's in trouble," Zach continued. "Maybe they wanna fire her." Neither Mitchell brother had been following the Jurassic World case very closely. They'd given their depositions in March, told the lawyers everything they could recall, put in words of defense for their aunt and for Owen whenever the opportunity arose. But Zach knew in passing that some of the cases had progressed to the trial phase already, cringed inwardly whenever he thought about what they must be doing with the answers he'd given. Lawyers only pulled out the words they wanted the judge and jury to hear, after all. What if he'd said something that could be taken out of context? What if, unwittingly, he'd just cost Masrani Global the case? Their lawyer had expressed to both brothers in pre-deposition meetings that the first cases would set the precedent for the ones that followed. What if they weren't happy with Claire because of that?
"But Aunt Claire's the best," Gray protested. "They put her on TV all the time. Why would they fire her?"
Zach made a noise and glanced past his younger brother's shoulder as Claire and Owen approached. He shot the boy a glance that told him not to say anything yet.
"Ready to go?" Claire asked, adjusting the bag on her shoulder. Gray, unable to contain himself, surged forward and wrapped his skinny arms around his aunt's waist. Claire was surprised, wavered uncertainly for a second but quickly returned the embrace. "Sweetie, is everything okay?" she asked, glancing to Zach, hoping the teenager could offer her a clue. He shrugged, scrutinized a tree root by his foot.
"I love you, Aunt Claire," Gray said.
The woman looked worriedly from her younger nephew to her older nephew to her boyfriend. Owen's brow quirked for a second as if to say they know something's up. "Honey, I love you too. A whole lot." She debated explaining the circumstances to them then and there but decided against it, reminding herself that nothing was set in stone yet. Masrani could very well change its mind. After a moment, she released Gray from her grip. "Let's go?" She again let her gaze dart from Gray to Zach to Owen. "C'mon."
The four set off down the hard-packed path. "I take Blue down this trail a lot," Owen elaborated a few minutes into the hike. "Nice and quiet. Good for a run. There's a little pond up that way, you'll see it in a sec."
"Aunt Claire, you know Mom would let you move in with us if you had to, right?" Gray asked.
Claire froze for a moment, thanked her lucky stars that her sunglasses hid the look of panic in her eyes. Owen's mouth gaped open and Zach gave his brother's shoulder a quick but forceful squeeze. The woman cleared her throat and recovered. "Of course, sweetheart. Of course I know we can come to you if we need it. Just like you could always come to us if you need it." She had to ask. She couldn't stop herself from asking. "What brought that up?"
"Nothing," Gray locked eyes with his older brother. "Just…in case something happened and you couldn't live in your house anymore."
The redhead nodded, swallowed hard. "Let's…keep going, alright?" The four started up the trail again.
"Wait, stop!" Gray hissed, standing stock still. Owen's eyes immediately darted around him, searching for danger. When he realized what the boy had spotted, he grinned. A couple dozen yards out, a doe had stopped and was staring intently at them, trying to determine whether or not to run.
"It's beautiful. I've never been this close to one before," Claire whispered and the thought struck her as strange. She'd been raised in the Midwest. Deer were as common as birds or bugs and yet she'd never gotten this near one. The closest she'd ever gotten to a deer was looking at one in the yard through a window. She had gotten closer to live dinosaurs than to a deer.
"I have," Zach mumbled with a note of sheepish humor. "But it ran into my car."
The doe's ears pricked and flexed with each of their voices and her gaze didn't waver but she didn't move either, instead observing to see what the four would do next. Gray took a half-step forward and the animal immediately shifted position, prepared to bolt. Another half-step and the deer was gone, the cracking of branches indicating its retreat.
"See? Told ya we'd see some animals!" Owen nudged his younger nephew and the four pressed on.
"Do you think we'll see more?"
"Maybe."
They hadn't proceeded more than a quarter of a mile when Owen stopped them this time, indicating a mound of dirt with a gaping hole in it a few feet off the trail. It was almost entirely obscured by decaying leaves from the fall and fallen tree branches. "Know what this is?" he asked the boys, who both shook their heads negative. "Badger den," he told them. "Might've been a fox burrow or something at one point but it's definitely a badger den now."
"You think the badger's home?" Zach questioned, stooping to get a better view of the mammal's dwelling.
"Probably," Gray answered for his uncle. "Badgers are nocturnal. They're probably sleeping right now."
"That's right," the man was duly impressed but not too surprised. He knew the youngster commanded a staggering amount of knowledge when it came to animals.
"And they're the state animal," Gray added.
"Right again. That's why they're the mascot of the greatest institution of higher education in the whole state of Wisconsin," Owen affirmed with a slight nudge to Zach, who rolled his eyes good-naturedly.
"What's that?" Claire pointed to the other side of the trail where a small, weasel-like animal was watching them from a low-hanging branch. She shaded her eyes with one hand to get a better view of it and Owen squinted in the direction she indicated, finally catching a glimpse of the creature.
"Looks like…" he edged closer, "a marten."
"A what?" Zach craned his neck to see it.
"Marten," Owen repeated. "Kinda like a weasel."
"Never seen one," the teen said.
"They like the woods," his uncle answered. "Your development is probably too open for 'em."
"Aren't we lucky to have our own personal park ranger?" Claire teased.
Aside from some birds and few squirrels—and one couple walking their dog—they didn't encounter any other animals over the course of the next two miles or the return trip, and by the time they reached the trailhead again, it was nearly 4 PM.
"We should get back to the house," Claire suggested as they approached the car. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. "Get cleaned up before your dad gets here. What time does he usually get off work?"
"Who knows," Zach answered honestly.
By 6 PM, they had all showered and freshened up. Owen had the Brewers game on and was watching intently, Zach staring keenly at the screen beside him while Gray alternated between watching the game and petting Blue, who rolled onto her back to let him rub her belly. Claire emerged from upstairs with a towel wrapped around her hair.
"What're we doing for food?" she asked, setting a platter on the coffee table and dumping half a bag of tortilla chips into it. "I don't think chips and salsa is enough."
"Pizza. Quick 'n easy. And they deliver," Owen suggested.
Scott called at 6:30 to let them know he was on the way and would hopefully be there in fifteen minutes. Claire felt her heartrate quicken at those words. It had been easy enough to ignore any lingering discomfort with her ex-brother-in-law visiting but once she knew he was coming, that he would be there in a quarter of an hour, those feelings couldn't be discounted anymore. She hadn't seen Scott in months, had barely thought of him. There was no reason for her to—they hadn't been close before he and her sister divorced. She barely knew him even when the two were married. But he was still Zach and Gray's dad and it felt wrong to exclude him entirely. Especially since he'd given up his weekend with his sons to let them stay with her. Nonetheless, her anxiety heightened and her heart slammed into her chest the moment she spotted an unfamiliar, red Frontier pickup truck pulling up the drive and knew it had to be him. Blue heard the car outside and immediately sat up on alert, a low bark readied in the back of her throat.
"Easy, girl," Owen soothed, rising from the leather couch. He glanced to Claire, who took a deep breath and composed the warmest smile she could. He clapped a hand on her shoulder, squeezed lightly, and joined her at the door just as the man rang the bell.
Claire opened it. "Scott! So good to see you!" she greeted with so much warmth in her voice anyone would have assumed they were old friends. She pushed open the screen door, hugged him and invited him in.
"Thanks for having me," Scott entered the foyer, shook Owen's hand. He was stiff, the smile plastered to his face a little too tightly. Blue barked, moved in circles around the man.
"She's all bark, no bite," Owen assured the man, dragging Blue away from him. "C'mon girl. Get on outta here."
"Dad!" Gray emerged from the great room and charged full-speed into his father, hugging his side.
"Hey, bud," Scott relaxed immediately, rested a hand on his son's upper back. "How you been?"
"Good. We went windsurfing! And hiking!"
"That sounds awesome," he smiled. He locked eyes with Claire for a moment and the woman swore there was a hint of gratitude in his expression that made her beam.
Zach entered the foyer a moment later with a carefully-practiced casualness. "Hey, Dad," he greeted with forced nonchalance.
"Hey, Zach," his dad replied and the tenseness returned. He opened his arms for a hug that Zach reluctantly accepted. Owen frowned for a moment, unsure what to make of the scene but Claire was fairly certain this was routine. She knew her nephew well enough to know that he wasn't the type to outwardly express joy at seeing his father. But that didn't mean he didn't feel it nonetheless.
"How are you?" he repeated the question he had asked Gray when they pulled back.
"Good," Zach nodded, arms folded over his chest. "You?"
"Good," the father replied.
"Pizza should be here soon," Owen put in, trying to cut some of the tension.
"And there's chips and salsa in the great room," Claire added, leading the way.
Scott seemed to relax a little when he saw the Brewers game on. Common ground, Owen figured, inviting the man to sit on the couch. Zach dropped down beside his father and Gray returned to his seat on the floor, back leaning up against the sofa. Claire joined them, perched on the sofa arm nearest her partner.
"You a Brewers fan?" Scott asked Owen.
"Nah," Owen answered. "I'm a Braves fan at heart. Brewers're a close a second, though. Can I getcha a beer or a soda or somethin'?"
"I'm good, thanks," Scott replied, eyeing the game for a moment longer. "So, Gray. Tell me about windsurfing," he requested.
Gray's face lit up. "Uncle Owen took us to Lake Mendota. We got lessons and we got to go out on the lake. I wiped out a couple times but it was so much fun!"
"Sure sounds like it, bud," the father replied. Claire noticed the slight twinge of sadness in his features and felt a pang of guilt shoot up her chest as well.
"You have fun, Zach?" he turned to his oldest son.
"It was awesome!" the teen replied, a smile breaking through his stoic façade despite himself.
"How are you, Dad?" Gray asked.
"Doing good," Scott replied. "Work's been pretty busy but not too bad. Glad I could come see you guys."
Owen saw an opportunity to make small talk and went for it. "What d'you do for a living, Scott?"
"VP of sales," the man answered. "Our company sells a lot of tech components for medical equipment and things like that."
"Sounds like a nice gig," Owen replied honestly. "My mom used to work in sales."
"Not as exciting as training dinosaurs but it pays the bills," Scott said.
"Also less likelihood of getting accidentally eaten on the job," the ex-raptor trainer joked.
"You clearly haven't met my boss then."
The chime of the doorbell indicated that dinner had arrived and Claire got up to pay the delivery driver. At dinner, Gray regaled his father with all of the animals they'd seen on their little hike that day. Scott listened intently, inserted questions here and there. Zach told him about his impressions of windsurfing, his plans to help run a basketball clinic at his school in a few weeks. Claire realized now that Karen really had been right. Things seemed to have gotten much better after the divorce. Scott wasn't the coldhearted person she'd assumed and the boys no longer seemed to carry any resentment for him. And it seemed the father had learned to prioritize. She hadn't seen him glance at his phone once, whereas he couldn't stop looking at the device the last time she'd spent Christmas with her sister's family. Granted, that had been in 2008 but given how things panned out, she couldn't imagine he'd gotten any better until recently.
"So what are your plans for tomorrow?" he asked. The question was directed to the table, not just his boys.
Owen cupped Claire's hand with his own. "We're taking things one day at a time," he told the father. "A little adventure's fun, right?"
"Can we camp out?" Gray asked.
"Where're we gonna do that?" Owen asked curiously.
"The backyard!" the boy replied. "There's lots of space and it'll be just like camping in the woods. Please?"
Owen glanced to his girlfriend, who only smiled. "I don't see why not," she answered for the both of them.
"So that's our plans for tomorrow," the former raptor trainer told Scott with a grin.
Scott stayed until the game finished, with the Brewers winning by two runs in the ninth inning. "I'll see you boys in two weeks?" he asked his sons.
"Two weeks," Zach confirmed and this time he initiated the hug with his dad.
"Bye, Dad," Gray also hugged his father.
"Bye, buddy," the father held his youngest son close for a moment and then released him. "Try not to drive your aunt and uncle insane the rest of this week," he teased.
"Claire's already kinda crazy as it is," Owen taunted and she smacked his arm good-naturedly.
"We'll walk you out," the redhead suggested, holding the storm door open for her one-time brother-in-law. Owen brought up the rear and the three proceeded to Scott's pickup.
"Thank you," the father said gratefully. "For taking care of them and letting them stay the week. It's been hard, you know. For all of us. Them, Karen, me. We haven't really been able to take them anywhere fun since…well since Costa Rica and then the divorce. So thank you for making their summer better. They deserve it."
Claire smiled. "They're always welcome here," she said. "We love having them."
"I should hit the road," Scott excused himself, opening the driver's side door.
"Get home safe," the woman hugged him quickly.
"And don't be a stranger," Owen shook his hand again. The couple stood in the driveway until he had backed the truck all the way out and his taillights had retreated up the road.
It wasn't until they were inside again and she had gone upstairs to change into something more comfortable that Claire remembered she'd been ignoring her phone all day. She sucked in a breath as she pushed the on button, the power-up menu displaying SAMSUNG in bright, white letters. The phone loaded, then began to vibrate as new emails flooded her inbox. Her pulse quickened as she tapped the app icon and waited for the new messages to populate. One of the first that day had been from Rich. The subject: RE: Relocation. It was the message she had been dreading all day and she almost didn't want to open it. Swallowing hard, Claire tapped the message. Her blue-green eyes darted over every sentence.
Claire,
I have taken into account all you have said to me and while I do recognize that we had an agreement, Masrani Global's needs have changed. With the first wave of litigation hitting courtrooms in the coming weeks, the eyes of the world will be turned towards our company. It is imperative that we have our point person on hand during this crucial time. For that reason, I must insist that you relocate to San Diego for the foreseeable future. Here, you will begin the role of coordinating our press response and overseeing all MG operations related to the litigation. Masrani Global will, of course, compensate you for this inconvenience with a one-time relocation package to cover your moving costs and allow you to purchase a new home nearby. Please let me know if we can help in any way. We will talk at length later in the week.
Best Regards,
Rich
-
Richard F. Wiesner
Chief Operations Officer and Acting CEO, Masrani Global
Claire read the email again, still incredulous. Then a third time. And by the fourth time, she couldn't even see the words through the distorted, blurry film of tears.
A/N: I know a lot of you were hoping this wouldn't happen but, let's face it, Claire was bound to get relocated sometimes. I wonder how she's going to handle this one? Will she find a compromise? Also, this is the first time I've given an unfiltered view of Scott. Anytime I've written him before, he always seemed like a bad person because I was offering Zach or Claire or Gray's perspective during a turbulent time in their relationship with him. I tried to give a more unbiased view this time. Did it work? Do you hate him a little less? More? Indifferent? Please drop a review and let me know your overall impressions on where this is headed. I love your feedback! Thanks for reading!