AN: I wrote this the weekend the movie came out and then forgot to post it, whoopsie! Better late than never.
The new movie was phenomenal and a testament to its writing that the most blatant easter egg is the one I missed completely. However, it featured a glaring lack of Timmy…or more specifically Timmy-and-Alan feels, so Imma take initiative and be the change I wish to see in the world.
Bon appetite!
'To heal is to sit in full presence with what aches. Once it feels seen, heard, honored, it will retire to the backseat, and only then you can drive.'
"Healing #3" from Child of the Moon by Jessica Semaan
~OL~
The M&Ms are taunting him.
Alan kicks the vending machine a second time, glaring at his requisitioned Crunch bar…
Aaaaaand another pack of M&Ms falls from the top shelf. Yellow wrapper, peanut filled. With a scowl, Alan pecks at the buttons.
"I asked for number four, thank you very much. Not." Peck. "Number." Peck. "Eight." Peckpeckpeckpeckpeck—
"Alan?"
He leans his forehead on the Plexiglas. His sigh fogs it, the barrier between him and unhealthy chocolate goodness.
"It's not an unruly undergrad. You can't intimidate the machine into submission."
"If I could, it would be crying for an A grade right now." Alan turns, a reflex smile on his lips for Ellie in her powder pink bathrobe. Ice bucket in her arms. Then, quieter, "I don't like M&Ms. Haven't had them in twenty-one years."
Ellie blinks. Sudden understanding softens her eyes. "I get emails from Billy sometimes, you know. He still keeps a picture of you in his camera bag."
Alan looks down, clears his throat. "He messages me as well. Sporadic emails, mind you. But he likes to keep me updated on his new career with National Geographic."
Ellie probably already knows this, since she's seen Billy's photo spreads taped all over Alan's home office.
"It's almost midnight, honey." Ellie approaches on soundless sock feet. Up close, a fresh scar over her eyebrow pops in the muted hotel lighting. "You still hungry? Late night snack?"
Her eyes flick to the Crunch bar—she remembers it's his favourite, after all this time. Alan reaches out for her also on reflex, his chest warm, and she clasps his hand at once. "Something like that. Just needed to figure out…well, I can't sleep."
"It'll be fine tomorrow." Ellie takes the lead and kisses him soft and sweet, like they're high school students. No pressure, no speed. They have all the time in the world now. "The senate already knows our statements and we're essentially just re-hashing them for the court's sake."
Her bangs tickle his nose, scented with eucalyptus and rosewater shampoo. Her lips taste of the buttermilk chicken they had for supper hours earlier, even though she brushed her teeth. She grins against his skin and Alan steals another kiss. Decades yawn between when they were together and now, and yet she still feels out of his league, the shiniest gift that never tarnished or aged.
He circles his arm around her shoulders as they begin the slow trek back to their room. They don't talk, don't need to. Especially since they did a lot of that on the plane ride to Washington, Ian snoring across the aisle.
Still, Alan stops at the door and pulls her close. He whispers into her hair. "I missed you."
Ellie drops the bucket at once and two arms twine around his shoulders. A wet spot grows on his neck. "I've missed you every day for thirty years."
Alan noses her cheek. "All this time, it feels like I've been…"
"Leaving space for you."
"You always could read my mind."
She leans back and winks. "I'm on this ride with you until we're old and gray, Dr. Grant."
Alan scoffs. "Welcome to the station, then. I passed old and gray a long time ago."
She playfully flicks his chest and they share a hushed laugh. "You coming inside?"
"In a bit." Alan smooths his knit cardigan. "I need a minute."
"Of course. Take your time."
Ellie demands another kiss with insistent lips and he obliges, amazed at both how natural it feels and how new, astounding. Had this really been normal once? He vows never to take it for granted again.
Alan sees her safely into bed and then wanders downstairs. His fingers massage at his sternum, an achy spot he can't name.
Washington spits up enough rain over the world to make Noah jealous. Nausea dogs at Alan too and he stands by the lobby windows with a tight jaw, lights over the water a dizzying array. They twinkle, man-made stars.
Alan has to close his eyes for a moment.
The front doors hiss open and herald the swishy sounds of an umbrella being shaken out, wire hinges retracting.
"Dr. Grant?"
Alan opens his eyes to see a concerned face and wet hair. "Mr. Cole. How'd it go today?"
"Call me Ramsay, remember?"
"Only if you call me Alan."
The young man laughs and adjusts a messenger bag on his shoulder. "Fair enough. And it went well, we just had a press conference after that ran late. International teams are still hankering for more statements and details about what happened. It's your turn on Capital Hill tomorrow."
"Oh goody." Alan looks out the window again. "I'm still impressed you had the guts—and morals—to blow the whistle on BioSyn. Not many people would."
Ramsay unzips his coat, hands pausing while he thinks. "I would never have thought to dig deeper without the anonymous tip."
Alan straightens. "Anonymous tip?"
"Ever since the Jurassic World incident, science corporations have been getting covert emails, particularly ones that deal with dinosaurs." Ramsay taps his umbrella on the marble floor. "Like a Banksy of the science world."
"Huh." Alan's brow beetles. "And you never found out who it was?"
Ramsay shakes his head. "I figured the best we could do to repay this person is take action, whoever they are. And some of those emails contained…"
He stops, head canted.
"What? Contained what?"
"Just…up close and personal details. Unusual things we never released to the public, like how the T-rex's pee comes out from behind, near the tail."
"All females do that," Alan explains. "Males urinate towards the front, away from their feet. Eric attested to as much when he was rescued."
"Who's Eric?"
Alan's throat tightens. "He's…never mind." He scrubs a hand down his face. "How are Grady and Claire? Maisie feeling better?"
"Much better." Ramsay checks his phone. "I get the occasional text about how they're doing. Tonight's just says, 'had burgers for supper. Didn't even have to share it with a raptor. Was awesome.'"
Even Alan can't help a faint grin. "Sounds like Owen."
"Weirdest thing: they managed to strong arm someone at the CIA into giving Maisie a social security number, which should help them immensely."
"I can imagine." Alan nods, and before he realizes, it's morphed into a head shake. "I didn't think it would end like this. Didn't think I'd make it this far."
Ramsay shifts closer. Tired though his eyes look, they lock fully on Alan. "How so?"
"I watched my hat sail away under a dinosaur's breath and thought that was it. I'd be eaten or mauled or ostracized by the world for what I'd seen. That only heightened when dinosaurs were unleashed on the public."
A faint smile overtakes Ramsay's face, knowing. "And now?"
The two scariest words in Alan's life until a week ago. He puts a hand over the achy patch. Wind lashes the windows in time with its throb.
"And now…now here I am with everything I've ever wanted, Ellie, retirement from digging, everything but those animals removed from human life—and that will hopefully be decided tomorrow." The ache burns and Alan's fingers clench in his sweater. "Like seeing a prophecy of your demise that never comes true."
Ramsay gazes out the window too. He stays quiet, save a low hum of commiseration. The nightshift skeleton crew bustle around the lobby, helping guests fresh off the red eye flight. Alan struggles to find emotional purchase in the moat around his happiness.
"Closure is a powerful thing," Ramsay murmurs. "You get to start over, make a new normal. I mean, why else would you testify, be an advocate for reform?"
Alan opens his mouth. Closes it. His first response is, because of Ellie. And that's true. He doesn't have a future without her.
But the feel of a little girl's hand in his outside a BioSyn lab flashes through his nerve endings. Even with Ellie's influence, he wouldn't do this without that moment. That same hand scrunched in his coat, Maisie's big eyes begging him to come with her.
Even this isn't the full reason. Alan's chest wails, a living entity with its own cosmos of emotion.
"I'll let you know once I figure that out," he settles on.
Ramsay's brows shoot up, but he just nods. "Oh! Before I forget, I think someone expected you to be at the hearing today instead of me. Must have got the trial days mixed up. They left this at the front desk for you."
From his bag Ramsay pulls a white, square box. He hands it across to Alan. "Good night, Dr. Grant. It's been a privilege to get to know you. Though I do wish we weren't fleeing for our lives for half of it."
Alan stares down at the box, dumbfounded, then uses it to nudge Ramsay with a chuckle. "Ditto, kid. With people like you, the future of our planet is in good hands."
Ramsay beams and waves goodbye while catching the elevator.
Alan pivots the gift around in his hands, puzzled by the lack of name on it except for his own in bold, block Sharpie letters. Not Dr. Grant. Not even Grant. Just 'ALAN.' Complete with a miniature drawing of a raptor claw.
"Why would someone leave me a package…"
Alan flips off the lid and his jaw drops—
There, nestled on a bed of tissue paper and expensive gold lettering, sits a brand new wool fedora. Sandy tan colour, complete with a leather band and buckle on the side. Exactly the right brim width and size for his head.
Alan collapses in one of the upholstered lobby chairs.
Shaking fingers run over the crisp material, never worn. Alan sniffs at the polished leather, creasing the wool folds with his thumb and index in the old way.
Then he pats it down over his white hair with a reverent exhale. His eyes close, the past married to a second chance future.
"Closure," he whispers. "I can do that."
~OL~
The suit itches. Even cutting off his blazer tag in the bathroom didn't make a difference. He sticks to denim in his wardrobe for a reason.
"Stop fussing," Ellie hisses. The short recess is almost over. "It won't make the sentencing decision happen any faster."
The words are exasperated but her hand warm, snuggled in his where they sit in the court room. And won't that take some getting used to.
Or at least…Alan thought it would. In reality, waking to sun through the curtains and taking his first breath of the day feels less natural than Ellie's grip—solid, tender, nimble. Ready for anything. He's always loved that about her.
Alan resists the urge to point out that she's already adjusted his outfit five times today, her own nerves on full display. That incident by the park's pond across the street was the first of many.
"I know…I'm just tired."
Ellie glances around him to Ian on Alan's other side, chin to his chest. "We all are. We're running on fumes at this point, after two months prepping for trial."
Just telling their side of the story, all thirty years of it, took hours earlier that morning. Ian squeezed his arm when Ellie told her part about Muldoon and the raptors. Alan squeezed back.
If Ian seemed unusually pale for his own testimony, no one called him out on it.
Supreme Court Judge Corazon returns to the room in a billow of robes, leader of the senate, and he remains standing. The others take their seats, but his eyes twinkle behind his glasses and a stoic face.
Ellie's grip tightens, to the point that Alan's fingers tingle. Ian snuffles himself awake and uncrosses his ankles.
Alan holds his breath until a shadow passes by the window. One of the pterodactyls who lives on top of the Lincoln Memorial, Alan sees, by the distinct mottled mauve pattern. Maybe even one of the same ones who tried to kill he and Billy, all those years ago. Now flying over afternoon traffic like it's nothing.
Alan clenches Ellie's hand back just as hard.
"…hereby declare no persons shall conduct genetic reproductive experiments with prehistoric or extinct creatures again."
Ellie sags against Alan. The courtroom erupts with mumbling and cheers.
The judge isn't finished—"Furthermore, these animals are to be herded into and left alone in BioSyn Valley, now a restricted zone complete with its airspace. Any attempts to breach this will be considered a crime against America, the UN, and free peoples of the civilized world…"
He goes on, gavel slamming to maintain order, but Alan's long since taken off that brand new hat and covered his eyes with it. Ian laughs—can't seem to stop laughing—and Ellie pants little squawking sounds that only fuel Ian's cathartic humour.
"It's over," Ellie quavers. "Alan, it's really over! We finished this."
They did, but Alan's chest still throbs.
What's wrong with you? This is a triumph. We won and everything is as it should be.
Ian snatches the hat from Alan's hands and throws it in the air like a movie reel from the war. He catches it on the freefall. "Let's get a drink, lovely people! It's time to celebrate a day of human sanity and accountability. Don't get too many of those."
Ellie barely contains her seat for closing remarks. Alan follows she and Ian out of the room while camera bulbs flicker. More man-made stars. Reports mob them from every angle, demanding to know how Alan feels about the victory, the decision not to engage with or clone dinosaurs ever again—now a newly minted international law.
Alan doesn't hear any of it, just like he doesn't hear the words Ian stoops low to say in a conspirator's tone. His eyes are shiny behind the oversized glasses. Ellie hustles them to their car waiting on the curb, kindly driven by one of her lab assistants.
Everyone jostles and shoves, a blur of motion.
Except a pair of brown eyes. Perfectly still and poised, they crinkle with laugh lines around the edges. No one pays them a second look. They're extraneous, part of the landscape on this historic day.
They're also filled with tears.
Alan halts dead. His toes buzz inside his shoes.
The sea of reporters bumps into him from behind and he trips forward. Still, he doesn't blink. His breaths come fast, heartbeat a jackhammer against the hat brim perched on his forehead.
"Alan? Sweetheart?" Ellie looks back at the car door. "What are you—Alan!"
Alan takes off, heedless of the four lanes of traffic between him and the eyes. They're wide now.
Ian tries to grab his sleeve. "Grant! Hey, no, Grant—"
Alan dodges him, along with the car horn that blares just inches away. He weaves around a truck and makes it to the other side of the road just before a motorcycle hits him head on. It's the same park he and Ellie walked in that morning, running through their statements one last time.
None of those rehearsed words prevent Alan from losing his breath in one big gust. A vomit of air and disbelief.
The man stands a nose or two shorter than Alan, late thirties, button front shirt untucked on one side, ratty loafers laced into anxious knots. Curls tossed by the wind. His hands hang loose at his sides—
Turned just enough to spy milky rope scars in perpendicular bursts across both palms.
Alan can only gape. Voice snatched.
The man's is too. He opens his mouth and it quivers a beat before sound comes out. Alan expects something profound, words never spoken the first time around.
Instead, his lips quirk up on one side and: "A stegosaurus knocked over my clothesline last week."
Alan approaches with careful footfalls, slow motion steps to keep the mirage from disappearing.
"Crazy, right?" The man huffs what's almost a sob. He loses the battle the closer Alan gets. "Everyone on planet earth has a dinosaur story now and I managed to avoid them for three decades."
Alan cups the wet face in both hands. "You…it was you."
He can only breathe the word but it makes the man's tears spill over anyway. A hand brushes Alan's left wrist and his knees almost buckle. The long fingers ghost over Alan's beard in wonder.
"Busted. Turns out I like asking questions so much I made a living out of it."
Alan finally sees the press pass on a lanyard around his neck. "Reporter?"
"Investigative journalist."
"Look at you…Look at you! You're a man." It chokes Alan to say it. He swishes his thumbs under the bright eyes, so full of life, the only reason he recognized them in the first place. More tears take their place and Alan wipes these too. "Thank you for my hat."
An equally wet laugh. "I didn't like seeing you without it in those press statement videos. Didn't seem right."
"Alan!" Ellie sprints towards them, out of breath. She swats Alan's shoulder. "What were you thinking? You can't just go bolting into traffic! Are you trying to get yourself killed? You could have…you…" Ellie locks on the eyes like him and her hands freeze mid-swing.
She gasps. "Timmy?"
He swipes his nose, like he's nine again. "Hey, Dr. Sattler."
Ellie squawks some more. Alan grins for the first time all day.
"None of that." She yanks the boy into her arms. Somehow, through Time's slight of hand, he's taller than her. Not by a lot, but just enough to make Alan woozy. "It's Ellie, and thank you for the anonymous tip. This ruling wouldn't have happened without you."
Tim closes his eyes into Ellie's shoulder like it's the only thing keeping him standing and Alan drapes his arm across the bony shoulders, so the boy is sandwiched between them. The back heaves and falls a few times. Ellie pets his hair, the squawking sounds long since devolved into muted keens and soft reassurances.
"I'm just glad Ramsay and Ian acted on it. It's the least I could do," says Tim. "Right the wrongs my grandfather started."
Ellie steps back so Alan can dive bomb Tim in a proper hug, and cupping the back of that unruly hair for the first time in twenty-nine years twists his lungs into balloon animal shapes.
Unlike with Ellie, Timmy wraps his arms around Alan's neck. It's a move Tim did countless times that fateful weekend, the ghost of a child inside the man. He's still lanky, all limbs, just with new chest muscles and the rough edges of someone used to living on the road.
"I'm so proud of you," Alan whispers. He rocks them a little, side to side from the force of their tight arms. "You always were braver than the rest of us. Precious boy…"
Timmy giggles, but this time it's genuine. "Alan, I'm thirty-eight."
"Same difference."
Tim hums. The sound vibrates right over Alan's heart. Wet eyelashes brush Alan's neck, and at the feel of that chest inflating in a healthy breath, no cracked ribs, no blue lips…
The throbbing ache dissolves.
~OL~
Ian takes them for that drink, at an outdoor patio in a quieter part of town where they won't be gawked at. It's for the best, as Alan refuses to let Tim out of his sight. He totes a battered canvas rucksack over his shoulder everywhere they go and scribbles in a leather notebook during the car ride.
Ian stands from his seat once the trio appear at the bar's patio door.
"Is that…be still my heart! Tim, my boy!" Without missing a beat, Ian runs over and pecks both of the boy's cheeks and ruffles his hair. "Smile still dimpled as ever, I see."
Tim rolls his eyes, flushed. "Hey, Dr. Malcolm. I read your latest book."
"Did you?" Ian sheepdogs the boy into a chair. "And?"
Tim's face goes soft when Ellie kisses Alan for pulling out her seat. "And…it didn't disappoint. A taste of how things should be."
The four have been driven to the point of exhaustion for weeks, for their various reasons, so they order more food than they should. An obscene amount that gets them funny looks. Appetizers and steaks and nachos and deep fried pickles, honestly Ellie—but Alan doesn't feel so bad since Ian is paying and Tim sinks in his seat at the sight of all the plates.
Alan frowns at him. "When was the last time you had a good meal?"
Tim squints upwards. "Uh…Thursday maybe? No, I think it was last week at the sushi place. Sometimes I just grab a granola bar for the day, since I'm on the run so much."
Shaken, Alan palms at his arm. He has to swallow a few times before his blood pressure calms. "You're eating as much as you want. I mean it, Tim. Three courses or bust."
"Again, I'd like to reiterate—I'm thirty-eight."
Not to me, you're not. Alan wisely leaves that out. "Age has nothing to do with poor self care. Honestly, it's a miracle you can't turn sideways and disappear by now."
Tim flushes again, but he's smiling.
"A toast! Let's have a toast." Ian holds up his mojito. Ellie does too, her white wine, eyebrows high in anticipation. "To uh…uh to old friends lost and found and a fresh start."
"I'll drink to that. Cheers." Alan taps the trio of glasses.
So does Tim, with his water. "Alla nostra, everybody."
Ian leans back in his chair, eyes on the sky. His other hand fishes for his phone, and Kelly's face comes up in a text chain. "I can't believe it's over. I have to tell my little girl."
"I can't believe it either." Ellie nibbles on a pickle. "It'll take a bit to sink in."
"I only wish Lex could have been here today," says Alan. He ducks to catch Tim's distant eyes. All teenage slump in a man's body.
Tim huffs through his nose. "So does she, trust me. I kept her updated. She almost flew out to be here for the senate's ruling, but she had to coach her son's softball game in California."
Alan runs a hand over his unsteady lips. A winded tone comes out. "Her son?"
Tim wakes fully back to the present and his eyes crinkle. "Yeah, she's got three. Feels weird being an uncle. They're rowdy but she's raising them right—we nicknamed them the lost boys."
Alan has to sit back too, dizzy. Round two of food arriving saves him from the spiral, the futile attempts to layer this boy and his sister, now a mother, over the man sitting by his elbow. How his tiny body fit in Alan's arms once, covered in blood.
It's just as well, since Alan and Ian have to gang up and rescue the mozzarella sticks before Ellie steals the whole basket. Tim grabs bites between drafting his latest article in the notebook.
Ian kisses Alan and Ellie's cheeks too at one point for good measure, and Alan muses how on edge the tall man must have been for years, in the belly of the beast, undercover for all intents and purposes. He rivals them in the relief department.
"No kids of your own?" Alan asks Tim at one point, after stars replace the sun. They set down their forks some time ago, basking in the food coma.
Tim's mouth descends on one side, up on the other. "I'm dating someone…but no. Hard to maintain a stable relationship when you spent your twenties in therapy for buried trauma and the last seven years running around the world exposing proprietary evil. You?"
Alan's heart skips. He shakes his head and sips at his beer. The hat rests on the table between them, dappled with a light drizzle.
"I think…I think I've been waiting for this moment. Right here. All this time." Alan looks up and meets Tim's gaze, eyes too big for his face now just like they were back then. "So yes and no."
Tim's voice rasps, just under the sound of wind. "Me too. I can't believe you and Ellie flew all the way to BioSyn and-and did what you did. Saved us from a global famine."
"You'd have done the same, son."
Ian and Ellie are both hand talkers, which creates an interesting air vortex on their side of the table. They wave their hands, babbling over each other in an animated discussion about how to help their kids apply to grad schools.
Tim ceases picking at the label on his non-alcoholic beer—his estranged stepdad has a drinking problem, a pattern he never wants to repeat, Alan's learned in the last two hours—and gestures to them with it.
"Knowing you lot were out there, somewhere, it helped keep me going. In more ways than one. She convinced you, right?"
Alan's shaking his head before Tim even finishes. "No, I didn't do this for Ellie."
Tim turns to him with a start. Alan leans closer, hand threaded through the young man's. Scars pulse against Alan's weathered skin with a heartbeat he fell asleep to in a jungle. It lulls him even now, a counterpoint to the day's drama.
"I thought it was Ellie, and in some ways I did go to BioSyn for her, but she's not why I fought so hard for change. Not even Maisie Lockwood, though she helped me…remember."
Tim's thumb strokes the back of Alan's hand and he finally loses his own battle. Tears weave into his snowy beard. "You're it. You're my reason."
"Alan…"
"It's always been you kids, somewhere in the back of my mind. Ever since you flew off that fence."
Tim deflates, hand clammy now. "I didn't realize you thought about me at all."
Alan stares. "Are you kidding? I didn't want to push, since you never responded to any of my letters."
"Letters?" A curl falls over Tim's wrinkled brow. "What letters?"
"I wrote to you after we got back. Ian gave me your home address in New York, and I wanted to check on how you were coping. After half a dozen cards and silence, I figured you didn't want my in your life or any reminders of what happened, so I respected that."
Tim's eyes water for the second time in one day. It contrasts with his glower at the table. "Mum."
"Not your grandfather?"
Tim angrily smears the tears away. "Grandpa loved catching up with old friends, so I doubt it. Mum was furious at him, would hardly let us talk. She must have thrown away your letters too."
The ache is back, this time behind Alan's nose. He grips Tim's wrist for a moment, full of regret and a hint of possessiveness. Still, he can only whisper. "I'm so sorry, Timmy. Sorry that I didn't fight harder to be in your life."
"I'm a grown man now." Tim's earnest eyes say otherwise, but Alan recognizes nostalgia talking. "I could have come to see you at your digs or reached out. I just…I thought you'd forgotten all about me."
"Forgotten?" Alan's mouth coils like Tim fed him something poisoned. "I still have a picture of you taped in my office. I've been following Lex's career since her stint at MIT. Harder to find you, though."
"I go by mother's maiden name," Tim confesses, pointing to his press pass. 'Timothy Belmonte.' "My sister doesn't."
The weight of it hits Alan, that he could have had a relationship with this boy from the very start, could have protected him from a deadbeat man if only he'd dug a little deeper.
Always digging, never finding. Slap it on his biography someday.
Tim can read his mind just like Ellie. He flips his hand to close it around Alan's wrist in return. "It's not your fault. Alan, none of it is your fault."
One of his tears hits the back of Alan's hand. Ellie discreetly slides across a travel pack of tissues and goes back to her conversation with Ian.
"They all started with you," Alan breathes out, shaky, not making any sense. He feels in Tim's grip an echo of Eric, of Billy, of Kelly, who he met through Ian, of Maisie…and suddenly it coalesces, right as Alan says the words out loud—"You're my 'why.'"
Tim's damp eyes track the ripple in Alan's jaw, round and young and wizened with things Alan doesn't know about. Alan doesn't know everything his…this boy lived through and right now it's unacceptable.
Scars line Tim's ear and jaw too, from an unknown source. He's got a medical bracelet and Alan doesn't know what for. So many moments he missed, first dates, first cars, nightmares, dreams, lost teeth under his pillow.
"You're my reason," says Alan again, feeling every single year of his age. "Both why I was unhappy digging and the real reason I said yes to Ellie—let alone the Kirbys—to reaching the finish line InGen set."
Tim's other hand flails between them. "I'm just me. Alan, I haven't done anything."
"Yes, you did." Alan tips even closer, to press trembling lips briefly to Tim's hair. "You showed me what I could be, what had to be done, and it was my choice to run from that for so long."
Tim closes his eyes and squeezes Alan's wrist.
They both just breathe for a moment, and Alan takes the opportunity to blow his nose in one of the tissues. Ian orders more food, a tray of sample cheesecakes. Ellie's greedy fingers claim all the dark chocolate ones at once.
Timmy watches them all eat, looking content for the first time since Alan spotted him in the park. Alan doesn't think he can eat another bite, fit to burst, but finds he has more room for a sliver of cherry cheesecake.
"I haven't…I don't think I've been this happy in a long time either." Tim's face is mellow, eyes half lidded on the bite Ellie hand feeds Alan from her fork.
"Forget letters—you'd better get used to my presence in your life, because you're stuck with us now," Alan teases.
As he hoped, it coaxes the grin back on Tim's face. "Tit for tat. Prepare yourself for an influx of nosy questions from yours truly at the next press briefing."
Ellie sways into Alan's other side, face tomato red from laughing at something Ian said, Ian already planning what sounds like their joint vacation for the fourth of July weekend, Tim stealing some of Alan's cherry cheesecake…
Alan reaches forward for his hat and taps it on his heart, then over Tim's hair. Tim waggles his head and the too-big hat to keep Ellie's laughter going, cherry syrup caught in those dimples. Ian steals a photo.
"I'm looking forward to it…" Alan rests an arm across Tim's shoulders and tucks him against his side. "I've been looking forward to this since the day we got on that helicopter."
~OL~
One month later
Alan sips his coffee at the table and eyes their window over the kitchen sink.
It fogs…clears…fogs…clears…fogs…clears.
"Did he go to bed at all?" Ellie sails behind Alan, kissing his shoulder on the way by. She gestures to a lanky figure next to Alan. His head is pillowed on his arms, before a laptop and open word document.
"Yeah, he just got up early to finish an article on the economic reform, I think. Hey, ah!"
Ellie rolls her eyes but back tracks for a proper kiss. Alan smiles against her lips. "He needs this upcoming vacation. Thank you for letting him bunk with us for a while."
"This sweetheart can stay as long as he wants." Ellie pulls away, but that's alright by Alan since she pecks Tim on that bushy hair. Forever untamed, no matter what age he is.
Alan slides his coffee over so it's closer to Tim's elbow. No even a twitch at the smell. He must be out of it.
Ellie glances at the east window. "You call the containment team again?"
"Still fiftieth on the list. Our other guest is here to stay for a little longer."
"Can't say I won't miss her when she's gone to her new home." Ellie grabs a banana on her way to the downstairs bathroom. After a minute, the shower starts up, right on cue with her usual humming. 'Moon River' today.
The nostril at the window is replaced by an eye.
"Alright, alright." Alan grunts as he stands. "But no eating my ferns this time."
He opens the window and shuffles back so a fat snout can appear over the sink. She seems to recognize him, and it makes Alan wonder sometimes, when she sings her long-necked song at night behind their oak trees…
Her tall head crest doesn't even remotely fit in the little window, but it's still far enough for her to bypass the houseplants entirely—even a freshly washed head of lettuce by the sink—and sniff closer to Tim. Alan gapes at the lack of interest in food.
A gust of Brachiosaurus breath flares that sandy mop. Tim stirs. "'M almost done. Promise."
Alan resumes his seat, offering the coffee when Tim leans back. "It's your first day of vacation. No more writing articles while you're here. That's my rule."
"'Kay." Tim opens his eyes just long enough to steal a sip of coffee. He isn't phased one jot by the leathery snout a hand's breadth from his face and even pats it before his eyes close again. The creature snuffles. "Just hafta send this to my editor."
"Later," Alan murmurs.
"Later sounds…sounds good…" Tim's asleep again before the last syllable leaves his mouth.
Plunk. His head lands on Alan's shoulder. It sends hot breaths over his neck like the Brachiosaurus does with theirs.
She examines Tim a beat longer.
"Still a big cow." Alan too rubs her nose. "Better not sneeze on me."
Alan knows he should prod the boy into bed before he gets a horrible crick in his neck, but he enjoys the absurdity and peace of it all too much to move. A dinosaur head in his kitchen. comforting, trusting weight against his side.
The Brachiosaurus pulls her head back outside, revealing the morning's cloudless sky.
Alan closes his eyes into the warmth and light of a new day.