Worlds Combined

AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: Happy Tuesday my wonderful readers. Are you ready for some fun stuff in this chapter? Here we have two very different kinds of mothers, species wise, we're going to see that they very much similar though. I'm really glad that you guys are enjoying how I'm writing this story because I've been working really hard on the themes and how to portray Una. I hope you guys continue to like it. As always don't forget to leave a review and I'll see you guys next week!

Chapter 9 – A Mother's approval

The computer chimed and Amanda Kirby jumped.

"Paul! It's happening! It's happening, Paul!" she shouted and somewhere in the house Paul Kirby's feet could be heard against the hardwood.

"Answer it!" he shouted. "I'm coming but answer it before we lose the call!"

Amanda pressed the accept button and after a few agonizing moments and a black screen and few scattered stuttering hellos in the sound of her son's voice, Eric finally appeared.

"Hey mom!"

"Oh, Eric! Eric! Look at you!" she cried.

He didn't look much different since she had left him. It had been almost six months since he had left and he didn't look any different. Except he had a beard coming in. He must have brought a shaving kit, because if he hadn't, he would have had a bigger, bushier beard. He was looking lean, though he had always been a lean kid, she hoped he was still eating. He looked really tanned too so she had to figure he wasn't using the sun screen like she asked him to. He also really needed a hair cut, it was getting shaggy and he kept brushing it out of his eyes.

But he was smiling his trademark happy smirk and looked perfectly fine.

She could have spent this call nitpicking and nagging but she didn't want to do that, only because she didn't know how long this call was going to be. She didn't want to waste her time with small things like that.

Paul finally made it into the room, leaning over Amanda to look at the computer screen where they could see their son's face and he waved.

"Hey there bud! How are you doing?"

They had had very limited contact since he had left the island. He called them on the satellite phone he had but he never told them much on it. The phone was from Ingen and he wasn't sure if it was bugged.

But this time, in the safety of their own home on a secured connection, they could finally ask Eric all the hard questions.

"Are you eating enough?" Amanda asked unable to control herself. Eric j ust rolled his eyes.

"Mom," he groaned. "I'm fine. Everything's fine."

Paul took the seat beside Amanda. "Get attacked by anything yet?"

"Rival pack of raptors but I didn't even get a scratch," he said with a shrug like it didn't matter.

That was remarkable, that nothing had flat out attacked him yet. That island was death walking. There was literally no such thing as safe on the island, and yet he seemed to be perfectly safe. They were only there a few days and literally everything they had come across had tried to attack them. Like every five seconds.

But if he was that safe did that mean…

"Did you find her then? Una I mean? Is she…"

And then her head popped into view from behind Eric. She was older, but she still looked much the same. Brown skin, littered with white scars, her brown hair looked like she had hacked it off herself with a knife. And since she didn't have a hairdresser that was probably what happened.

"Eric mummy!" she said pointing at them. "Eric mummy stuck in box!"

"No Una, it's a video, it's…"

Her head was doing a swivel thing that meant she was confused and as soon as Eric clocked it, he stopped trying to explain it.

"She's not stuck, she's there on purpose," he said and then turned back to his parents. "Yeah… yeah… I found Una. We've got a safe place, I've got the electricity running, her pack seems to like me. They want to move in."

"Eric pack safe? Safe in box?" Una asked getting right into the camera so all they could see was her chin and the starting of what they realized was hickeys running down her neck. Right, so they knew what their son was doing with that girl in their "safe place"

Eric pulled Una out of the Camera and then pushed her away. "Go lie down, I'll be there soon, okay?"

"Sex?"

Eric went bright red. "Una!" he hissed but his parents couldn't help but laugh, it was only because she didn't know the etiquette. Why would she? She was raised on an island by dinosaurs.

"Yes, later, just… please be quiet," he said softly and then turned back to his parents. "I really regret teaching her that word."

"You're being safe though, right?"

"Of course. Billy dropped off a box load of condoms. I know they're not the best but I don't think I'm at a point where I can explain the pill to her you know?" he said. "This is awkward can… uh… can we talk about something else?"

And they did. Though the video call was short as it was nighttime there, time change and all. It was nice to see that their son was alright, that he wasn't dead in some dinosaur's belly. And though they hated to admit it, he was definitely much happier now that he had Una back. Much, much happier.

-JP-JP-JP-

Eric went out the following day to start gathering the intel that Ingen wanted.

They wanted specific pack movements, pictures of the different dinosaurs if he could. Eating habits, mating habits. Proof of everything the scientists debated about. That was what they were looking for.

Things they could sell without having to send people to this island to try and catch these creatures because that's how their workers died. No attempt to catch dinosaurs on this island had ever ended positively, only in death. So, this was what they were going with.

One man on an island with a camera.

A man that had signed am million contracts stating he knew what he was getting into and that he wouldn't sue for any damages. And then they made his parents sign a contract saying that as his power of attorneys if something happened to him, they wouldn't sue them for anything that happened. And they made him sign privacy agreements, and non-complete disclosers all amounting to he wouldn't' be able to profit off the information he gathered here, because he couldn't sell it to anyone other than them. And if he did, they'd sue him for all he had.

And then they had his parents sign the exact same agreements.

But it was okay, because Eric wasn't doing this for money. He was doing it for Una. He just couldn't let them find out about her. So as soon as he was settled, he went to work getting them everything they wanted.

He had spent most of the day tracking and photographing a pack of ankylosaurs for most of the day. He had gotten a few good shots and made some notes about the things they had chosen to eat, and taken some samples as they moved along.

Eric had taken a page out of Una's book and had spent most of the time in the trees, unless he was taking pictures. In which case he was on the ground as close as he could get.

The whole day he had sensed that something was watching him. He kept looking around for Una, but she never showed up. He knew that she had been off to be with her pack today, or to do her raptor girl things, but he figured, since they usually spent most days together, she would have at least come looking for him.

Except she didn't.

He was a little put off.

But that just meant, when he returned to the compound, he'd get a very excited Una jumping all over him. Or at least, he hoped he would.

And he was so stuck in that fantasy that he didn't realize the predator had arrived until it was literally in front of him.

He had literally broken all of his wilderness survival training rules. He had been distracted and not paying attention and now there was a raptor in front of him.

Una had told him that her mother had marked the edge of her territory by a certain set of claw marks. She kept pointing them out to him, so he'd know what to look for and if he was in a safe area. He immediately began to scan the trees looking for those marks but he couldn't see any.

So he was either out of her territory or in it and there were no marks near-by.

He was certain he knew this raptor too. There was one huge one in Una's pack. He had been her friend, he knew that from before, because she had saved him only a little before Eric had first shown up on the island.

Rum, maybe?

God, he wished he knew raptor.

It hadn't attacked yet, so that was good. It just stood in front of him, stretched out to his full height to stare down at Eric in a threatening sort of manner. Eric wondered if he was about to get ambushed, that was what raptors usually did.

Unless they were challenging something.

Was that what this was?

"Uh… hello?" he tried. "Are you with uh… are you with Una?"

The head swivel started which meant that this raptor had no idea what Eric was saying. Which was fair. Una didn't talk human to her raptors.

He was really going to have to get her to teach him Raptor so he could kind of talk to them.

He was starting to edge toward the closest tree to climb up it when the raptor lunged forward, claws first.

And Eric couldn't get out of the way in time.

-JP-JP-JP-

"Did you know that bipeds have different names for sex?"

Rela struggled to keep her eyes from rolling. Since showing her how to mate it seemed to be all that Una ever did with her biped. And all she ever talked about.

Mating was a necessary chore for a raptor. Not painful but not pleasing either, just a part of the creation process. But to her hatchling it was some play activity to derive joy from. And maybe that was good, except he was taking precautions to make sure she didn't actually create a being with her.

So what was the point of doing it so often?

"He's called it making love, fucking, sex," she listed. "And there are different positions and way to do it. It's a lot of fun. Do you guys have fun?"

"Una, littlest one," Rela said patiently. "I am trying to hunt."

"Sorry. What are we hunting?"

Una very rarely went on hunts with the pack. That would be because she didn't like to hunt creatures she had helped and she had helped almost every pack on the island at this point. On top of that she was notoriously useless for hunts except for if they used her as bait.

Rela hated using her hatchling as bait.

Rela huffed. "You know I love having you around, my little hatchling, but you never come on hunts. So what's the matter, why are you here?"

"Eric went to do something called work and he asked me not to bother him while he's doing it…"

"So, you're bothering me."

"Well, I was going to take Rhum fishing but I can't find him so…"

So Rela was stuck with her. Great. Though it wasn't like Rhum to not be with the pack, and not Una either. He was usually with one or the other, and if given the choice he always picked Una. He was feeling a bit abandoned since her biped had come back. They used to spend every day together, now they barely saw her.

Rela had a bad feeling about Rhum's disappearance. But she didn't voice that to her hatchling. Not if she didn't have proof of ill intent.

In the distance came a cry, first just one of pain. But it wasn't a cry that came from a creature or dinosaur, or bird. It was the kind of cry that Una made, except this was deeper, this was male. And there was only one other biped on the island that they knew of.

That cry of pain was then followed by a scream, a scream for Una. Una had already been alert the second the first cry was heard, but when her name followed it, she managed to go even straighter, because that confirmed it. It was her biped.

She took off, already running through the bushes towards him, but his cries for her continued, and there were getting farther apart.

Rela kept telling her hatchling to stop meddling with the ways of the jungle. Saving the prey when predators were just trying to eat, all because she had grown attached. It wasn't logical. But then her hatchling would always remind Rela that she had broken that rule herself. Everyone deserved a chance, especially since the jungle had seen it fit to give her one.

And of course, this biped was infinitely more important than any of her other pet dinosaurs that she was always rushing off to help.

But Rela also knew that Una was too far, and she wouldn't be fast enough to reach her biped mate in time.

This could work to her advantage. If something were to happen to him Una would finally move on. She could find her a more suitable mate, maybe convince her to take Rhum.

But then Una would be sad. And Rela didn't want her hatchling to be sad.

She barked, a simple order of follow. And then she too rushed off after the cries. Overcoming her hatchling quickly and leaving her behind. Racing to the rescue even though she really didn't want to.

-JP-JP-JP-

It was keeping him away from trees. Every time he tried to get to one it would lunge.

It hadn't fully attacked him since that first move. The claws on its hand had raked him from mid bicep to forearm. He was bleeding but it wasn't bad. It just stung a bit.

The raptor just seemed to be making threat displays at him. Strutting around, circling Eric, who was doing smaller circles as to not show it his back.

He had called for Una but hadn't heard from her. Not good. So, he had stopped calling, didn't want it to think that Eric was weak, because right now, seeing as it was challenging him, standing up to it might be the only reason he was alive.

It was, however, attempting to back him up, trying to corner him. Eric knew, the second he was cornered he'd be fucked so he couldn't let that happen. But the lunges were getting more frequent and more aggressive and before Eric knew it his back was up against a tree. This would have been great if he thought he could quickly climb up it, but the Raptor was too close for that. Eric would turn around and that thing would go at him. He knew it.

And it seemed happy that Eric was now cornered. He swore he could see it smiling, triumphant that its plan had worked. It definitely looked like Eric was about to get eaten. Would Una find out and mourn him? Or would she just think he disappeared? God, he didn't want this to be how things ended.

And it wasn't.

Another raptor burst out of the bushes, hissing as it went, getting between Eric and this larger raptor.

The new raptor was also familiar, he could tell by the spots of green dappled around the eyes and across the snout like freckles. This was Una's mom. Was she there to help him? Cause… she liked to act like she didn't like him.

Una's mom got into her own challenging stance, hissing and barking in an angry sort of fashion as she stood her tallest height and stared down this other raptor. For a moment it looked like he wasn't going to back down and why would he because he was almost a head taller than Una's mom. But Una's mom was alpha for a reason and he clearly didn't want to chance a fight with her. So he backed away.

Lowering its eyes from the Alpha Raptor and backing away.

Just as Una crashed into the clearing.

She was too panicked, clearly to remember her human words, because she was barking at him as if he were raptor. He merely opened up his arms to her and let her hug him.

"I'm alright, I'm okay."

She hugged him for a few seconds, glanced over his arm and then turned a glare onto the raptor that attacked him.

She left his side to stand by her mother and together the two of them barked at it. They seemed to have a conversation, no doubt about what just happened and judging by Una's face it was not good.

She barked something at the raptor that had attacked him that had it jerking back like she had hit it and then she turned back to Eric.

Eric, who had been half watching her, and half watching the other raptors that had gathered around him, immediately hit her with a panicked look. Because all of them were taking turns sniffing him and sniffing his injury.

She took a hold of his bleeding arm, outstretched it and right away the closest raptor began to lick him. Not in a vampiric, I want to drink you blood, kind of way, but in the way a dog would when trying make the boo-boo better.

That raptor was nudged away by the Alpha, and Una's mom, so she could go about cleaning his wound.

Eric wasn't one hundred percent certain but he figured that this was a big moment. And while he appreciated how much they all cared, he really just wanted to head back to the compound to give himself actual first aid.

"We gotta go back Una. You coming with me or staying with them?" he asked softly.

He knew once he got back and he was patched up he was going to bombard her with questions, and she probably knew it too. So he'd be okay if she didn't want to come back with him, but he really hoped she would.

But she didn't understand the question because her head swivel was back.

"Me or them," he said pointing. He knew how it sounded, like he was making her choose forever, but he really wasn't

He just wanted to know if she wanted to come home with him or stay with her pack right at that moment, not forever. He wasn't sure if she understood that and when hurt seemed to flash over her face, he realized that she had clearly took it as a permanent choice.

She inclined her head towards him as she said: "You."

Great, she had picked him but she thought he meant forever. He didn't have time for this right now. Once he was patched up, he'd worry about fixing the miscommunication, at that moment all he wanted was to be safe back at the compound. And he was going to climb into bed and stay there. For the rest of the day. With her in his arms.

He offered her a hand to hold which she took right away and then together the two of them walked back to the compound. In complete and utter silence.