Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too. It's all hers. I also don't own Jurassic World or Park or even a dinosaur. I just don't.
Jurassic Job
Madge sighs as she tries to feed the giant fern. It's some strange genetic hybrid created to add wonderment to the park, but she can't help but wonder who thought splicing it with a carnivorous plant wasn't a bad idea.
"People will love it!" Her supervisor had squealed when Madge had first asked about the advisability of the choice. "Otherwise the dinosaurs will get all the attention."
That, Madge thought, was the point. They were in Jurassic World, land of the dinosaurs, not land of the completely fabricated, violent, plants. It wasn't until a kid tripped over a guardrail, into an ornately designed flower bed, and lost his arm from the elbow down that the park management finally realized that the plants didn't need to be every bit as wild as the main attractions.
Every 'man-eating fern' had been removed after that, except for the small collection Madge now had to tend to. They were meant as a deterrent, keeping people from wandering off and getting too close to the back of the T. Rex paddock.
If she saw a bright red sign with an Audrey expy on it, chomping the legs off a stick person, she'd certainly stay away at any rate.
Tossing the last of the unidentified meat from her pail into the strange open jaws of the fern, she turns and nearly runs into something warm and solid.
Screaming, she almost trips backward into the once again open mouth of one of the ferns.
"Why do they let their clumsiest botanist prune their deadliest plant?" Gale chuckles, pulling her against his chest.
Rolling her eyes, Madge hits him with her bucket, sloshing a little blood on the ground as she does.
"I'm not clumsy." Even though she might be, a little. "You scared the crap out of me."
"Did you think one of your babies uprooted itself and decided it wanted Madge meat and not," he squints at the plants, "whatever the hell it is you just fed them?"
She snorts. "They aren't my babies."
Not by a long shot. They were that fraud Effie Trinket's. How she hadn't been fired was anyone's guess. Her landscaping ideas weren't that great.
Taking the bucket from her, Gale leads the way out of the flower bed, up to the hidden walkway it guarded that led to the T. Rex paddock.
"Wanna come see the old girl get her next meal?"
Madge makes a face. She's seen 'the old girl' eat too many times already. It had never held much appeal to her, and watching her devour a goat an unnumbered amount of times hadn't changed that.
"Your loss."
They head away from the paddock, twisting through the much less deadly, but still not entirely authentic, plant life that's been carefully set out around the park.
Madge and Gale had met when they'd both come to the park as interns, back when it was still an experiment that most people thought would fail.
It had been exciting for Madge, an adventure. Leaving the country to help cultivate exotic plants, to help create a sustainable food source for creatures that had been extinct up until recently, to be part of history in the making. It was better than working for a pharmaceutical company, at least in her mind.
When she'd gotten there, she and all the other interns were quickly put to work in the botanical gardens, weeding and planting, which wouldn't have been so bad, if anyone would've listened to them when they made suggestions or inquiries about strange choices.
"These plants have a very irritating oil on their leaves," Thresh had pointed out. "Should we plant them so close to the path?"
Effie had simply laughed. "It's not like anyone is going to touch them. Besides, they're just gorgeous!"
Just like the ferns, she'd been wrong. Not a week after opening, several people had ended up at the park's medical stations with rashes that were eventually attributed to the oil on the leaves.
The entire garden had to be redone after that, and somehow Effie had managed to worm her way out of blame yet again.
If she had known when she'd first accepted the job that she'd end up as little more than a glorified landscaper working for a madwoman, she might've weighed her options a little more carefully.
Glancing over at Gale, she smiles to herself. Well, maybe not.
At least her choice of jobs hadn't been a total disappointment in some regards.
Gale had been an engineering student when he'd first stepped foot on Ilsa Nublar. He'd come to help with the expansion of the park, ensuring that the safety features were sufficient and helping with the almost constant upgrades that occurred. His job, at least, had been exactly what he expected.
He was the sole reason that when her internship had ended and she'd been offered a job that she'd taken it.
"Do you want to try Winston's for a bronto burger?" He asks, checking his app and frowning. "It's showing there are a few seats left. I can text Thom and get him to hold a spot for us."
"We'd have to change clothes," Madge reminds him. "Remember? They told us we can't be seen taking up guest space."
He grumbles, "Commissary it is."
Wrapping an arm around his middle, Madge gives him a squeeze.
"Don't be so glum. We can still stop by 'Baked' and see if Peeta can sneak us a cupcake."
That doesn't brighten his mood any.
Slowly, they make their way out to the main road, crammed with tourists and filled with the smell of hamburgers and steaks. Gale's stomach growls.
"Screw it. I'm going to that restaurant."
"Gale..."
Not hearing her, or more likely ignoring her, Gale grabs her hand and pulls her through the crowd.
"We're going to get in trouble."
"No, we won't."
Maybe he won't, he's one of his supervisor's favorite workers. Beetee considers Gale a kindred spirit, which results in Gale getting the choicest assignments in the most interesting areas. Plus he's good with animals, which earned him a spot in the T. Rex's lead handler's good book. His good connections ensure he won't be sent packing on the next ferry back to the mainland without so much as a commemorative cup.
Madge on the other hand...
While she was on friendly enough terms with most people at the park, she certainly didn't have Gale's kind of immunity.
She was definitely headed toward being fired.
Before she can protest anymore, Gale has pulled her through the glass doors and into the cool of the restaurant.
There are people dining, some dressed like they'd just come from a day of golfing and others in tacky floral shirts, all sipping on enormous 'dino-sized' mixed drinks, oblivious that their ranks have just been infiltrated by a pair of lowly park employees.
Thom spots them, his dark eyebrows high on his head.
"You guys know you aren't supposed to-"
"I don't care. I want a brontosaurus burger."
Raising his hands in surrender, Thom steps away. "Alright there, Mr. Flintstone, keep your animal skin toga on. Sheesh."
Thom disappears for a minute, but before Madge can pull Gale out and convince him that this is a bad idea, he's back, a pair of menus in his hands.
"Hold these over your names at least," he grumbles, shoving the heavy menus at them.
Jerking his head, he gestures for them to follow him as he leads them along the back of the dining area, past the bar, and out onto an empty terrace.
"Is there a reason this area is empty?"
"Yeah," Thom frowns. "A few of the triceratops from the petting zoo got spooked and ran through here a few weeks ago. They just got it finished yesterday."
Madge thinks she sees a small grin twitch on Gale's lips, and that makes her almost certain he knew there was a vacant terrace waiting for them when he'd started dragging her toward Winston's.
"I'll bring your food out, but if anyone spots you, I'm gonna say I've never met you before in my life."
"You're a true friend," Gale mutters, rolling his eyes.
With that and a rude hand gesture directed at Gale, Thom vanishes back into the restaurant, the doors clicking closed behind him.
Plopping into a chair, Gale pulls Madge into his lap and presses his nose to her hair.
"Damn, you smell good."
She laughs. She's worked most of the day, right up until she had to feed the ferns, in the fragrant flower room at the Innovation Center. Somehow she'd been recommended to the paleobotanist as one of the people they ought to talk to before doing their Dr. Frankenstein work on another round of plants, this time to be used in the gift shops as cut arrangements.
"We were working with Magnolias," she tells him as he nips at her earlobe.
"Hmm."
Eyelids fluttering closed, Madge eases into him as he continues to kiss down her neck.
"We should take the rest of the day off."
Her eyes open a fraction and she sighs. "I can't. I have to do tours through the gardens this afternoon."
"Tell them you're sick."
"No, Gale."
He's trying to distract her, get her to agree to playing hooky with him, and doing a damn fine job of it. She would, but she shouldn't, especially since they'd unexpectedly and unexplainably closed the northern portion of the island earlier. They'd need as much help at the remaining attractions as they could get, even somewhere as boring as the gardens.
Hazily, Madge's mind tries to think of things to talk about, anything that'll distract him and make him forget the afternoon he's clearly so intent on getting. He's making an entirely too good an argument and she's dangerously close to giving in.
"Are-Is your family still planning on coming down for Christmas?"
His wandering hands stop. Bingo.
"You could've just said stop," he grumbles, slouching back, his expression disgusted.
Wrapping her arms around his neck, Madge kisses his hair, which smells a bit like fish, and she can only assume that means he'd spent some time with Finnick at the aquarium before he'd come to find her. Probably swam in that nasty holding tank. If he'd have just waited until the evening they could've gone to the beach.
All thoughts of Gale surfing are cut off by both their phones making awful squawking noises.
Madge's stomach drops.
Someone had seen them. Someone had seen them and they were being called in and given their notices.
Her palms sweat and she drops her phone, letting it skitter across the newly varnished wood before she realizes it's fallen.
As she's chasing after it, Gale pulls his from his pocket and silently reads the message.
"Madge."
She shakily picks up her phone, but before she can read it, Gale has pulled her to her feet and is dragging her toward the doors.
"It's a code yellow."
Madge feels her heart begin to pound as she tries to remember what each code meant.
Breach in containment-Gray
Ferry crash-Aqua
Child nearly eaten by plant-Green
Major disaster, prepare for evacuation- Yellow
Brain suddenly in overdrive, pulling evacuation protocols out from the dustiest parts of her mind, she quickly follows Gale.
Thom and the other waiters are gathered in a huddle, clearly all having just received word that they're going to have to start kicking patrons out, and they don't even look at the two wayward employees sneaking out.
As soon as they're out of the restaurant, Madge stops, still working through what's happening. "I have to go to the Innovation Center for the resource pool."
"You aren't going anywhere," Gale tells her. "Not until we figure out what the hell is going on."
As if the skies had decided to give him an answer, something screeched overhead, and when they both looked up they spotted dozens of flyers that had undoubtedly escaped the aviary.
This seemed well past major disaster to Madge. The flyers could make it around the world. Some had done so years before, when they'd escaped from one of the secondary islands, before Jurassic World had been established.
This was a straight up catastrophe, but she wasn't in charge of determining that kind of thing.
"Damn." Gale begins pulling her again, down the road this time, through the crowd that is now staring up at the sky in fascination. "Let's get to the bakery and get Mellark, then we can go find Katniss at the petting zoo and join the resource pool."
They're barely halfway to the bakery when the first of the flyers dives into the crowd.
Screams erupt around them, people begin panicking immediately, running and pushing, falling to the ground in an attempt to escape being picked up by the flying dinosaurs.
"How could this happen?!"
The aviary is one of the most secure sites on the island. There'd never been a breach before, not in all the years of operation.
A stray pachycephalosaurus could beat the system she supposed. They were shorting out their implants almost daily because of their head butting, but not even one of those had ever made it to the main street of the park.
Gale doesn't seem to care how the current mess happened, only that they need to get to some shelter before they became a snack for a crazed dinosaur.
Just as the bakery is in sight, a gust of wind knocks Madge off her feet and she hits the ground, her palms and knees taking the brunt of the force.
Looking over, she sees Gale is down to, thrown into a rolling snowcone cart, and she starts to get up to run to him and make sure he isn't hurt, when something darts out and hits the ground where her hand had been only seconds before.
Quickly rolling over, she finds one of the flyers just behind her, eyeing her curiously.
It's scared, she knows that. This is the first time it's ever left the aviary and had the opportunity to interact with the strange beings that come to stare at it. Madge is scared too though, and without a second thought, she pulls back her leg and kicks it as hard as she can in the beak.
It doesn't hurt it, but it does stun it enough to give Madge time to scramble away and get to Gale.
He's already getting up when she gets to him, grimacing and rubbing his head where it had hit the cart.
"I'm fine," he mutters, before she asks, already pulling her again.
She doesn't argue, there isn't time for it, but he's going to see medical soon. Assuming they survive this that is.