Ch 8:
Sierra always loved movie marathons.
Of course, it involved finding a series of movies that she liked enough to watch more than one of in a sitting. And finding the time to do so was always difficult, too, of course.
Growing up, she didn't always have time to have long movie marathons. Especially when you consider how long the average movie is, and how many movies it takes for it to be considered a "marathon". Sierra's opinion is that you need at least three for it to be a marathon. The final issue is her being home alone long enough to not be disturbed by her parents, most commonly her mother.
You'd think that wouldn't be an issue. After all, her father was away for months at a time, and her mother was always at work or out with friends. But Sierra also had school, and her mother usually was asleep during Saturdays and Sundays after late nights out. So Sierra couldn't be very noisy watching movies.
Over the years she'd had a variety of marathons. She watched classic Disney movies, the High School Musical trilogy, Back to the Future. She grew up on Star Wars thanks to Owen, and they'd had a marathon of the original trilogy together one time when she was younger and he babysat her for a weekend. The two longest marathons she'd had were when both parents were gone for a while.
One happened while her father was deployed, and her mother got with some old school friends for a whole weekend, leaving a twelve-year-old Sierra home alone for the whole weekend. The final Harry Potter was released that same weekend, so Sierra had a Harry Potter movie marathon before taking her allowance and going to the last movie in the theater. That marathon took her almost twenty hours. This was only a month before that fateful video chat that lead to Owen pursuing custody of her from her parents.
The other long movie marathon was a Christmas movie marathon she had while her parents were on some four-day Christmas cruise when she was ten. She watched all the Santa Claus movies with Tim Allen, the classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and A Charlie Brown Christmas.
In a way, she supposed it represented yet another escape from her life with her parents, considering they had to be gone for hours at a time.
So, she kinda liked having the occasional movie marathon.
But at this point, she kinda hated them, too.
It had been almost three weeks since she fell into the raptor paddock. Her injuries were fairly mild, all things considered. She'd had a minor concussion, which took about the first week to heal. And she had some internal bruising across her back from where she hit the ground. She hadn't met up with her tutor since the fall, but she was sent some reading assignments starting last week.
But for the most part, she was practically bedridden for the past three weeks. Which meant lots of reading and watching movies.
And she was bored!
Luckily, her imprisonment was only a couple days away from being lifted. She wasn't nearly as sore and achy as she was before. She could sit back in a chair without feeling sharp pains up her back from the bruising.
The familiar rumbling of an ATV pulled Sierra's eyes away from the view of the lake. She turned around in the lawn chair she'd claimed on the dock outside her and Owen's bungalow. Sure enough, her brother was back.
He parked the ATV on the grass near the trailer before dismounting and making his way toward her. She noticed the familiar paper bag that meant he got some dinner to-go from one of the park's restaurants.
Owen pulled another chair up next to hers, taking a seat and holding the bag out to her.
She took it, but didn't look away from his face, merely holding the bag in her lap. "So? What happened?"
Owen sighed through his nose. "CPS finally closed their case. And the construction on the paddock railings are nearly done. They're a few inches taller now. CPS finally decided that since you're sixteen, they don't really want to consider this a case of child-endangerment. Especially since you're as old as some of the interns. That could open up a whole other can of worms."
Sierra sighed, slouching into her chair a bit. "So, when can I go back to the paddock?" she asked. That was one of the worst parts of the last few weeks. After seeing the raptors nearly everyday for the last few years it was weird and lonely not being able to go visit them. Especially when Owen was at the paddock working nearly all day everyday. Vic had been getting after him since the incident, stating that her getting out unscathed was further proof that the raptors could take orders.
Owen pursed his lips slightly. "That was another long discussion." he admitted. "And a complicated one."
Sierra eyed him warily. "What do you mean?"
"Well,…" Owen sighed and slouched back into his chair. "There was a debate about whether or not you should even be allowed near the paddock."
"What?!" Sierra demanded. "What do you mean? What-"
"The CPS worker was concerned that you've been working so closely with such 'dangerous creatures' for so long." Owen explained, his tone implying that the phrase was one used by someone else, likely the CPS worker. "Especially when the situation with Echo was brought up, and she found out that you were literally at Echo's bedside and helping to heal and care for her. She thinks you never should have been allowed to get so close to her."
"But Echo was sedated and basically unconscious the whole time I was with her!" Sierra pointed out.
"I know that." Owen agreed, getting frustrated. "But that's besides the point. Echo herself proved that being sedated didn't always work."
"She only started waking up early because they were sedating her too much and she started becoming resistant to the drugs. I was never in the room when that happened." Sierra pointed out fiercely.
"I know. But that's not what I was getting at." Owen cut in. "It was a very long, heated discussion between myself, CPS, Barry, Masrani,… It was eventually decided that if you wanted to, you could be registered for the internship, since you're old enough. You could be an intern at the raptor paddock. It's a paid, part-time internship, and you've seen what most of their duties are. The CPS worker agreed that it would be acceptable. However," Owen went on before Sierra could get excited, "first you have to go through the mandatory safety courses and videos and stuff."
Sierra took a deep breath. "So, I take those required courses and stuff, and I can go back to working with the raptors?" she asked quietly, to which he nodded. "How long will that take?"
"Well, on top of your normal schoolwork, it could take a few weeks before you're through." Sierra made a slightly-disappointed face. "Hey, we should be happy you're allowed to go back at all." Owen pointed out gently. "And that CPS didn't decide to take you away and put you in the system."
Sierra nodded. "Yeah, I suppose so." She looked over at him. "What else? You still look bothered by something."
Owen sighed. "It's Vic. For some reason, he needed to be part of these discussions. Probably because it's a security thing. I was honestly expecting him to be all for you being banned from ever going near the paddock again. But he actually…pushed for you to be part of the raptors training and stuff."
Sierra wrinkled her nose, mildly disturbed. "Vic Hoskins wants me to help with the raptors?" she repeated.
Owen nodded slowly.
"What do you think that means?" she asked hesitantly.
"Well, if you'll remember, he's been getting on my case because he's not thrilled with my lack of progress. And he's seen you help with the raptors. I think he's hoping you might be able to make some progress where I can't. Or something along those lines." Owen admitted. "Or maybe if the raptors start showing signs of listening to you, he might use that to prove that the raptors will take orders from anyone, not just me."
"But that's ridiculous!" Sierra argued. "They barely ever listen to me. They're certainly not going to listen to some random stranger! And certainly not Vic; you've seen the way they look at him. It's like they're plotting his death."
Owen smirked slightly. "Yeah, I know."
"I'd like to see him try and order them around." Sierra went on.
Owen laughed, reaching over and reaching into the bag to pull out a burger. "Alright, alright. Enough. Let's eat before this food gets cold. We have a meeting with Masrani tomorrow morning to fill out the proper internship paperwork."
AN: Sorry this chapter is a week late, last weekend I was sick and didn't hardly leave my bed for most of Saturday.
This chapter and the next one are mostly filler chapters, but let me know what you thought of this one, like the small glimpse into Sierra's childhood, as well as the decision for her to become an intern at the paddock.
