Author's note: I'll do my best to revive this story because I actually like it, and that doesn't happen often. Besides, it's just been sitting on my laptop for about 6 months now, so... Have fun!

It was a mistake.

It had to be a mistake

She did it wrong.

Was there a wrong way to take a pregnancy test?

And how could she possibly feel so empty and so scattered all at once?

Claire's hands curled into fists and she sucked in a ragged breath that caught in her closed-up throat. And just like that, the Indominus Rex became the second scariest thing that happened to her.

A week ago, there was a moment when she actually felt free for the first time in months. It was like her whole life filled with endless possibilities was stretching before her, the enormity of it equally frightening and exciting. Like everything was fixed at last, the broken parts inside her finally fitting together in the pattern that made sense.

And then a few days ago, Claire found herself sitting in the corner of her bedroom with her arms clasped around her knees because a car backfired outside, her mind going into a full panic mode, vividly reminding her about the gunfire.

And today… today it was like someone turned her entire world inside out in a way she couldn't quite comprehend yet.

"Which one is it?" Karen asked quietly in that cautious voice that implied that she was scared her sister might break or explode, or first break and then explode.

"The third one," Claire muttered, sounding distance and far-away as though she needed to pull the uncooperative words from somewhere deep inside her. "They can all be wrong," she added weakly even though she knew they weren't. "The false positive thing."

Karen just gave her an uncertain look and a noncommittal shrug. "You don't have to decide anything now."

"There's nothing to decide," Claire dropped her face in her hands and buried her fingers in her hair, her eyes squeezed shut and her breathing short.

The truth was she made the decision the moment she suspected what was going on. Before the first test, or the second. Before she called her sister because there was no one else left and she was terrified out of her mind. Yet, even so, there was a black gaping hole in her chest, growing bigger with each passing moment, and she feared it was only a matter of time before it was large enough to swallow her whole.

"Oh, Claire…"

She turned to Karen, frightened and miserable, her gaze haunted. "I can't. I can't do this."

Karen put a hand on the knot of her tightly clasped hands and curled her arm around Claire's shoulders, pulling her closer. And it was only then that Claire realized how badly she was shaking, her teeth chattering despite the fact that the room was boiling hot.

"It's going to be okay," Karen promised

No, it's not, Claire thought, staring anywhere but at the white plastic stick on the coffee table, two blue stripes taunting her. She leaned into Karen, struggling to stop thinking and feeling, just for now, as her fingers clutched her stomach in a fierce, instinctive protectiveness she knew couldn't last.

xoox

It was interesting, really, how something could be both a trigger and a remedy at the same time.

The faster Owen ran, the clearer and louder he could hear heavy footfalls of a prehistoric beast, following him close, seconds away from sinking its teeth into him, its breath hot on Owen's neck, the memory imprinted so deeply on him he wasn't sure he would ever be able to shake it off.

And yet, weirdly, running also felt like moving forward somehow, in a greater sense than just getting from Point A to Point B. With every mile, his mind seemed sharper, less foggy, the whole world more in focus. At the end, he always felt like a blind man who was finally granted the gift of vision. Five, seven, ten, twelve. As many as he could handle before his muscles started to burn and his lungs were screaming for air; until his mind was empty, the desire to step out of his skin back in its cage; until it was time to repeat all this again. It felt like he was transcending the boundaries of time, speeding up the healing.

He needed to not think, for as long as he possibly could, and the physical exertion was one of a very few things that helped with that.

In the days following his conversation – his screaming match – with Claire, he packed up his schedule with everything he could think of, running at least 10 miles every morning and picking up extra shifts at work even though they didn't need him there and couldn't pay for overtime. He didn't care. He needed to be away from home, away from the walls that seemed to be closing in on him, away from the suffocating silence of the empty rooms.

He was starting to recognize the patterns he'd faced before, but right now, Owen didn't care. He couldn't afford to care. The only thing he could do was keep moving until there was nothing left that he needed to get away from.

He hopped up the porch steps on a Sunday morning, taking two at a time and kicking himself mentally for not stopping for coffee on his way back from the park, feeling pleasantly tired in the way that felt just right. And then he skidded to an abrupt halt when he saw Gray sitting in an old wicker chair he left outside, not sure yet if he wanted to keep it or throw it away.

"Gray?"

The boy looked up at him from under the hair hanging over his eyes, squished by his knitted hat, his eyes serious and more grown-up than Owen remembered, almost frighteningly so. The realization sent an uncomfortable jolt through him as his eyebrows pulled together.

Still breathing hard from his run, he ushered Gray inside before the boy froze his nose off, questions crowding his mind. "What's with the modesty? You know where the key is."

Gray pulled off his hat and dropped his backpack on the floor in the hallway, still eyeing Owen pensively, like he couldn't quite decide all of sudden what to make of him.

"Yeah," he responded vaguely.

"Everything okay?" Owen pulled the earbuds out of his ears and stuffed his iPod into the pocket of his hoodie, the cold air still coating his skin, hanging around him like a cloud. "Haven't see you in a while."

"House arrest," Gray explained without much enthusiasm, his voice tight in the way Owen didn't recognize.

"Yeah, your mom told me," he chuckled, and then his eyes narrowed with suspicion. "Does she know you're here?"

Gray winced. "Not really," he admitted, if a little reluctantly, his expression painfully guilty. "I just…" he trailed off and looked around, rolling his shoulders as he moved toward the kitchen.

"Okay," Owen drawled slowly, puzzled, and scratched his chin. "It's okay."

With a pat on the shoulder, he left Gray at the kitchen table with a plate of chocolate chip cookies and retreated to the living room to call Karen who was frantic by this point, assuring her that everything was okay and that there was no need to come - he was going to drop Gray off in a little while. The hysterical edge had left her voice by the time the conversation was over.

"I'm sorry, Owen. I have no idea… he's never done anything like that before."

"It's cool, really," he promised her. "I told them they're welcome anytime." He knew that this was not the case, but it felt like the right thing to clarify nonetheless. "Don't worry. We'll have a chat and I'll bring him back soon."

"Am I in trouble?" Gray asked when Owen returned to the kitchen and set the cordless down on the counter.

"I hope not," Owen shook his head. "So, what's up?" He asked, snatching a bottle of Gatorade from the fridge. Gray shrugged. "You want, um… hot chocolate?"

Gray's ears perked up. "With marshmallows?"

Owen puckered his lips thoughtfully and peeked into the cupboard. "Actually… yeah," he responded.

A force of habit.

The last time Owen had to do his own shopping, he was still living with Claire. Now, tiny marshmallows, her favourite brand of coffee and cinnamon pop tarts seemed to be appearing out of thin air in his pantry, jumping on the will of their own into his shopping basket and sneaking past the cashiers before Owen knew he was buying them. His sheets smelled of her detergent, and he consciously picked up Claire's preferred shower gel the last time he was stocking up his bathroom because why the hell not? He was pretty far down the self-destruction path anyway. Why not torment himself with the scent that used to cling to her whenever she'd step out of the shower?

It also occurred to him that making hot chocolate on the stove instead of simply microwaving a cup of milk and hoping the powder would dissolve without lumps was Claire's way, and he scowled at himself for that, his lips pressed together stubbornly. She'd gotten so deep under his skin he was feeling her in his bones, ever-present and familiar, half-wishing to scratch her out, half-hoping she'd never leave.

He could be angry with her, even hate her, but there was no way he could ever cut her out without leaving the scars so deep they'd never heal.

"Are you mad?" Gray asked when Owen put a mug in front of him and focused on stirring the drink with a spoon, a slight crease lodged between his furrowed eyebrows.

Owen blinked, confused. "Mad? That you stopped by?"

Gray shrugged again. "Zach said you wouldn't want to hang out with us anymore. Because you're mad at Aunt Claire." He looked up, grim and resigned. "I mean… she was kind of upset." His voice dropped and he pursed his lips together in a stubborn line.

It took Owen a minute to figure out what he was talking about, and then it hit him all of a sudden – the waiting on the porch, the radio silence, his uncertain half-answers.

Gray's expression right now bore a striking resemblance to the one of Claire's on that chilly February morning when Owen showed up at her door at 8.30 – be damned the early flight, his only option on such a short notice – with a bag of necessities and about a hundred layers of exhaustion wrapped around him. After a while, it stopped seeming likely that she would be coming back to California anytime soon, and he missed her. She looked at him with the same mistrust then – like she expected his desire to stay with her be a joke of some kind. It was as if thinking that they were so easily forgettable they couldn't fathom the idea of someone wanting to stick around was a family thing or something.

It occurred to him then that he tended to forget sometimes that both Zach and Gray were as much the victims of the park as the strangers he'd never really met, and the fact that they got off the island alive didn't change the way it scarred them in more ways than anyone could see. And how tragic and unfair was it that they had to grow up overnight like this?

Owen leaned toward the boy across the table.

"Gray…" He heaved a long sigh. "Of course, I'm not mad. Claire and I… we're fine," he assured him. Which was a major understatement, unless fine actually meant anything but, but it hardy seemed like the right time to go into the technicalities. "And even if we weren't, it's got nothing to do with you. Or Zach. Or anyone else."

A few days ago, he actually did call her to see how she was dealing with the media being suddenly flooded once again with the gruesome post-incident photos, the damned video clip of her and the T-Rex, and those endless interviews with survivors and families of the deceased. Her phone was turned off though and he didn't have the guts to leave a voicemail, choosing to finish half a bottle of tequila and watch something mind-numbing on Netflix until that deep, slashing pain inside him receded to a dull throb instead.

If this situation could get any more dysfunctional, Owen didn't quite see how.

Gray's shoulders sagged in relief. "Really?"

"Really." Owen tapped his fingers on the tabletop, struggling to form the next question without sounding like a total moron, although the fact that he did feel that way wasn't helping the matters. He wanted to know how she was doing, and there was a good chance her nephew wouldn't lie.

But Gray beat him to it. "So, you're still coming for Christmas? Mom said you would but…" he trailed off, busy fishing marshmallows out of his drink. But it's not like people are good at keeping their promises. Just because he didn't say it didn't mean Owen missed it.

"Sure I am," he assured the boy. "Who else is coming?" That did sound casual, right?

"Um, a couple of mom's friends," Gray responded. "And Zach's girlfriend, I think." He grinned. "Unless she comes to her senses by then."

Owen laughed. "Looks like you could use a company."

The boy nodded with enthusiasm, finally at ease. "It can get overbearing," he warned Owen. "Mom usually makes, like, five kinds of mashed potatoes."

"That does sound intense," Owen admitted, pushing back to turn on the coffeemaker.

Afterwards, he sent Gray to watch something on TV and hopped in the shower, scrubbing his face in hopes of finally feeling awake, hot water melting his muscles that felt tight and tense after a 12-mile run. And later, he made proper breakfast for them both and allowed Gray to complete whatever level of World of Warcraft he was at before taking him home, pleading with Karen not to punish him and then purposely driving by Claire's place on the way back to his house. Solely because it was more convenient, traffic-wise.

Her driveway was empty.

xoox

"They offered me a promotion," Claire announced, sticking a baby carrot in her mouth and chewing thoughtfully while Karen tried to wrestle a half-cooked stuffed turkey back into the oven.

She checked her phone to see how much time she had before she needed to head back and go through her notes, absently noting that the prospect of spending the next few hours on Skype felt almost like a relief. Which probably qualified as a major step back in her readjustment regimen.

"Really?" Her sister finally pushed the metal tray inside and slammed the door shut with a loud bang, blowing her hair off her face. She grabbed a towel from the hook to wipe her hands with. "That's great, Claire!"

"I guess." Claire observed the chaos around them and walked over to the window to push it open. With all the baking, grilling, and boiling the room felt like a sauna. "You can trust me with something, you know," she added sternly.

"Dicing," Karen agreed without protest, sticking her nose into a pot on the stove. "You can dice something."

"Sure. Dice."

"Onions. Vegetable drawer."

Claire hesitated. "Maybe not the onions." Which earned her a dirty look. "Onions it is."

"So, this promotion…" Karen began, eyeing her sister curiously. "I mean, it's been a rough few months-"

"All ten of them," Claire mumbled, searching for a clean knife.

"It's a good thing, right?"

"Of course." She shrugged, finally finding a clear spot for a chopping board between a bowl of potato salad and a bag of apples that were meant to be turned into a pie. "More challenging. Less… tedious. A step up from The Dick Van Dyke Show."

"I'd say so," Karen snorted.

Claire took a breath and added, "It's in Boston."

There was a long pause, interrupted only by the sound of her knife rhythmically hitting the board, a sappy jingle playing on the radio, and the screams of Zach and Gray from the backyard where they were either having a snowball fight, or trying to murder one another – it was hard to tell the difference. That, and Karen thinking so loudly it was almost drowning everything else.

Claire could feel her sister stare at her, unable to look up until she ran out of onions and her next best option was to chop her hand off. That would sure stir the conversation in a less rocky direction.

"Boston?" Karen echoed after a minute or two, and it came out as a poorly masked accusation.

At last, Claire sighed and put the knife down. "I never planned to stay here for good," she said, looking up, her tone defensive and apologetic at the same time. "It was always meant to be temporary. To catch my breath after… everything."

"Is this because of Owen?" Her sister was not the one to beat around the bush.

Claire chuckled humorlessly. "Contrary to popular belief, my life does not revolved around Owen Grady."

"Well, no. Only the past year of it," Karen hummed, making Claire cringe. "What did you say?"

"I haven't said anything yet. I don't have to until after the New Year."

"But you think of going." It wasn't a question, and the hurt in Karen's statement was loud and clear.

She was.

Not until the offer came in, but now Claire was finding it hard to simply dismiss it. Truth be told, her current job, compared to her position in Masrani Global, was what a LEGO tower was to an Empire State Building. It wasn't boring, per se. IT kept her busy alright, but there was nowhere to go, nowhere to grow, and she knew for a fact that if she didn't find a way to change it, she'd end up in the exact same office forty years from how, wondering how it happened.

Claire was getting restless, the life that not so long ago was barely anything but getting through one day after another had started to take shape again. It was frightening and thrilling, and even if she wasn't sure that moving to another city was what she needed, she knew she didn't NOT want to give it a try.

Besides, it wasn't radical, was it? Boston was a couple of states away, not several time zones away.

"I don't know," Claire admitted, rubbing her forehead. "It's not a bad thing, Karen. I know it's not like living the same neighborhood, but it's still closer… than…"

"South America. I know."

Karen leaned against the counter and folded her arms over her chest. Her cheeks were flushed from the steam and her hair was falling over her face, fizzy in the heat, and she reminded Claire of their mother all of sudden, in numerous situations just like this one that took place in the house Claire was now calling hers. And just like that, she was overcome with the need to have her sister fix her life the way her mother knew how to make her skinned knees hurt less. Except this time, she knew it wasn't happening.

The back door burst open and Zach and Gray tumbled in noisily, talking over each other and pushing one another, a mess of parkas and snow clinging to the soles of their boots. They ran into the kitchen, all red cheeks and messy hair, and the biggest smiles Claire had ever seen.

"Aunt Claire!" Gray yelped, throwing himself at her and squeezing her tight. And she couldn't help but break into a broad smile and hug him back, feeling his rapid heartbeat against her chest. He smelled of soap and snow when she kissed the top of his head, and his genuine glee at the sight of her was so pure it splintered her into pieces, sending a pang of wistfulness through her, reminding her of everything she was going to miss if she left again.

She was starting to grow roots here, and it wouldn't be long before they got so long and thick she wouldn't be able to pull them out without breaking something that was a part of her in the process. The idea left her antsy and unsettled, even more confused than before.

"Out!" Karen commanded once they grabbed their snacks, slapping their hands away from the bowls and plates they weren't supposed to touch, and they obediently left, taking their noise with them.

Claire bit her lip as she watched them go. "I need a fresh start," she said at last. "A change of scenery. Before I lost my mind completely."

Karen sighed. "How many fresh starts can there be? You will run out of world before you will run out of things you want to get away from."

xoox

Coping was a funny thing.

While Claire relied heavily on a cocktail of isolation and denial, Gray crammed every extracurricular activity the school was offering into his schedule to keep his mind focused on something that wasn't the massacre at the park; Zach suddenly developed an interest in team sports and detention (the things he previously managed to avoid, equally dividing his time between the two now); and Karen got a cat.

Well, technically it was Gray's idea and, technically, it was a compromise. Both boys wanted a dog while Karen wanted to not have anything to do with it when the novelty of having a pet wore off and her sons got bored of feeding it and such.

Hence, a giant orange monster who Gray, for the reasons unknown to Claire, started calling Mr. Smithy - even though his adoption papers stated that he was supposed to go by Shrek - because What kind of a name is it for a cat? He's not even green! To be fair, he didn't look much like Mr. Smithy to Claire either – more like that Muppet with drumsticks, but she didn't say anything to Gray lest she give him any ideas. Now Mr. Smithy was taking up half of the house, loudly demanding food and affection whenever he was awake.

And so when Karen took Zach and Gray to visit Scott's family over New Year's, Claire was summoned to be 'an aunt in charge' – something that Zach found hilarious. He was still laughing on his way to the car, purposely ignoring Claire's stink eye.

Yes, she could have taken the new member of their family to her place, but the prospect of hauling forty pounds of cat food and thirty pounds of cat to her house didn't look appealing to her. Besides, the Mitchells had HBO. It felt nice, Claire had to admit, not to be alone and yet not feel forced to carry on a conversation or be obliged to stick to social conventions without being asked repeatedly if she was okay every time her plastic smile slipped off her face.

"What do you want to watch?" She asked Mr. Smithy, flipping through channels. He chose to fall asleep.

When the doorbell rang, Claire turned off the TV and scooped up the cat that was sprawled across her lap, purring like a jet engine. "Well, here's my dinner and your…" she paused and regarded her charge thoughtfully. "Do you like shrimp? Of course, you do. What am I saying?"

She opened the door just as Owen raised his hand to press the doorbell button again, and for a moment, they just stood there, looking at each other – him with his hand lifted, and her with a giant orange cat.

"You're not Gray," he said at last, being the first one to shake off the surprise.

"You're not my food," Claire echoed now that they were stating the obvious.

His lips quirked for a brief moment. In the blue-purple twilight that could only ever happen on clear winter days, he looked wild, all broad shoulders and wind-tousled hair. His face, half-hidden in the shadows, seemed to be made of straight lines and sharp angles as if it was cut out of a piece of granite. A striking contrast to the softness she used to associate with him.

He squinted in the wind as she shifted the cat in her arms, and then showed her a plastic case he was holding. A video game, if Claire was not mistaken. "Gray was asking to borrow it," Owen explained. "Thought I'd bring it over."

"Oh." She glanced back into the house. "They're gone. Visiting Scott's parents."

"Right." He nodded, if a little uncertainly. "I thought they were coming back this morning."

She shook her head. "On Sunday." A pause. "You can leave it if you want," Claire suggested as the chill started to creep through her cardigan, her toes feeling like cold stones even in thick wool socks.

"Sure," he agreed easily.

Someone cleared the throat behind them, and they both turned to find a guy in a green-black delivery uniform standing on the porch with a brown paper bag in his hands, the name of the Chinese restaurant embroidered on his jacket and the front of his cap.

His eyes darted between Claire and Owen before fixing on Claire. "Is this 1573 Oak Drive?" He asked even though the street number painted on the mailbox was hard to miss.

"Yes," Claire said quickly. She looked down, then over her shoulder, realizing that her wallet was still somewhere in the living room, then at Owen, then at the delivery man again. "Um… just a second." She turned to Owen again. "Could you…" She was meant to ask him to hold Mr. Smithy, but he waved her off.

"I got this."

The bills were pulled out of his wallet and exchanged for the paper bag, and then they both finally squeezed into the warmth of the house – Claire still with the cat whose ears and nose were twitching curiously in the presence of a stranger, and Owen with her food and the new Uncharted, according to the label on the case.

"Thanks," she offered him a small grateful smile, which left Owen elated. "Let me get the money."

He set the food and the disk down on the chest of drawers near the door cluttered with gloves and forgotten earphones and spare keys and bus tickets. "Don't be absurd, Claire. I can afford to buy you…" he peeked into the bag, "whatever this is." It smelled delicious, he could admit that much. "Just… tell Gray I stopped by."

She was about to protest, but nodding seemed like an easier path to take, what with being too dumbfounded to see him after a few weeks of doing her best to avoid him. And then it struck her how ironic this was – in her attempt to get away from her own house that was packed to the brim with memories of her 3-month long life with Owen, they found each other in one another's company once again.

If he was bothered by it, he didn't show it though, not in any way she could see.

"When did this happen?" Owen stepped toward her, reaching to scratch the cat between his ears and earning a purr of appreciation.

From this close, she could smell the aftershave on his skin, the faint scent of the Ocean Breeze air freshener from his car and the cold winter air on his clothes, and something intoxicating that was just Owen, her chest tightening momentarily – a knee-jerk reflex to his presence. He had no right to have that effect on her still. Not when he himself could hardly bear being in the same room with her half the time.

"A few days ago," she explained quickly.

"So you're-?"

"Babysitting."

"I think the term is cat-sitting," he pointed out with a smile.

"Well, whatever it's called." Claire cleared her throat. "I guess I need to prove that I can keep a cat alive before Karen ever trusts me with her kids again," she joked drily. "His name is Mr. Smithy."

Mr. Smithy turned to her as Owen's eyes popped out in surprise. "Really?"

She hummed. "Not my idea."

He snorted. "Well, he fits right in." On impulse, he touched a curled wisp of bright red hair at her temple. She went completely still, staring at him with wide eyes, barely breathing, and he jerked his hand away as if the touch left him with a burn mark, his fingers curling into a fist. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his parka. "I should… go."

A flicker of something flashed across her face, gone without a trace before he knew to look for it, although whether it was disappointment or relief Owen couldn't tell.

"Of course."

"Yeah, I need to get back to work." A lie. "Double shift." Double lie. Claire knew for a fact he had a week off because Gray wouldn't shut up about going sleighing when they got back from their father's.

She nodded all the same. Who was she to deny him the pleasure of getting the hell away from her? After all, he quite finessed the art of doing just so lately.

"Sure." A fake, polite smile appeared on her face. "I'll… I'll tell Gray you came by."

Afterwards, Claire decided she wasn't hungry after all. She fed Mr. Smithy, allowing him to finish all of her seafood, and then found a marathon of Seinfeld on TV and fell asleep on the couch a few hours later to the sound of Jerry and George bickering about something utterly insignificant, still wrapped in Owen's scent, lingering on her skin.

xoox

One of the first things Claire had to learn after the incident was that there was a very fine line between coping and denial. The one that defined everything and that was very easy to cross. At times, she couldn't help but ask herself if moving back to the Midwest was the former or the latter. It didn't make Jurassic World disappear altogether, but it made it less real, soft around the edges and faded even on the worst of days.

And now she was doing it again – hiding in her sister's house and taking alternate routes to the supermarket for the sake of avoiding Owen at all costs. Which was ridiculous, really. Claire Dearing, a grown woman, accomplished and confident, was now going out of her way to change her daily routine because of a boy.

Freud was probably rolling in his grave. Laughing.

This was supposed to be a point in her life when her scars would start to heal and she would finally stop waking up with a scream frozen on her lips, still running even though there was nothing left to run from. Instead, she was slowly turning into a psychiatrist's dream who was sleeping on someone else's couch and pretending that all was right in the world so long as everything that wasn't stayed somewhere in the periphery of her attention.

She downright refused to admit how much Owen was affecting her. Again. His presence. The fact that he could barely look her in the eye. The effortless way he was involved with her family – way more than she'd ever been, too. And at the end of the day, she couldn't help but feel like a mouse running through a maze, except there was no cheese to reward her for her efforts, and no way out, just the walls towering around her and one dad end after another.

Claire hadn't seen Henry Wu once after the island, and for the first few months he stayed low, protected by the army of lawyers and the 100-page confidential agreements. He resurfaced around the time Masrani Global had finally given up on trying to convince Claire to come back, giving one interview after another – about better and safer and improved park the company was aiming for this time, the one that would honour the memory of everyone for whom the vacation in Jurassic World became the last one.

The first time Claire heard this nonsense, she wondered if Wu had any idea how delusional he sounded. She knew it was about covering their losses more than anything else, but it didn't make the whole situation any less absurd. If anything, he was making it worse, sounding downright delusional.

But looking at her life now, she couldn't help but think that she was just as delusional as he was, clinging desperately to something she wanted to believe was true without seeing it for what it really was.

xoox

Claire woke up with a start to the sound of her phone ringing persistently somewhere between the couch cushions. She fumbled for it, overcome with panic, her body flush with adrenaline. The mental images of Karen and the boys in a totaled car flashed through her mind and she forced herself to push them back before her heart burst in her chest from beating so fast she couldn't hear herself think. No one called in the middle of the night for a chat, and she knew, she just knew-

"I still have your number on speed dial," a muffed voice broke through the blood rush in her ears.

"Owen?"

"And even if I didn't, I still have it memorized. And I don't think I'll ever be able to un-memorize it."

"I don't under-"

"I'm so tired of lying, Claire." It came out in a whoosh of breath, only barely audible for her to catch it. "I lied to your nephew when I said that you and I were okay. And I keep lying to myself about not missing you so bad it drives me insane. 'Cause I do."

It took her a solid minute to actually hear him, and then she was suddenly wide-awake, his words running through her mind on an endless loop, over and over and over again.

"Are you drunk?" She asked quietly, rubbing her eyes, her mind hazy, still gripped in the dream she could no longer remember.

"No," he said, and the fact that he managed to slur a one-syllable word made Claire sigh. "Remember the Ferris Wheel?"

Her fingers flexed around her phone.

There was a day in January last year, a couple of weeks after they returned to the States, when they drove to Santa Monica one afternoon, mostly to get out of their heads and not think about the Jurassic World scandal for a few hours. But also because Owen had never been there and it seemed like as good time as any. No TVs and no phone, just a stretch of highway and the ocean alongside it.

The day was grey, surprisingly cold for California, even in the winter. Thick clouds were hanging low over their heads, and the sea was the colour of steel. Claire was wrapped in his jacket because neither of them expected the wind to be this fierce near the water and her sweater was a poor shield against it, and her hand was safe and warm in his as they walked past the mostly closed booths to the end of the pier, the old boards moving and creaking under their feet with each step.

"Yes," she said, not quite hearing her own voice.

Never a fan of heights, Claire didn't want to get on the Ferris Wheel, but there was no line, and so she allowed him to steer her toward it, his arm wrapped around her shoulders to keep her warm. Or maybe to keep her from being blown away – she never quite figured out for sure.

"Remember how at the very top, you could see the sea blend into the sky?" He continued.

She nodded even though he couldn't see it and squeezed her eyes shut as a gaping hole opened inside her again. She could still taste the ocean on her lips, feel a sheer layer of salt from the surf coating their skins and clothes. The memory, sharp and clear, sent a surge of longing through her, strong and frighteningly overwhelming.

High up in the air above the half empty amusement park, the wind was even more vicious, throwing her hair in her face and making her eyes water. But the view was spectacular. The ocean seemed so vast and endless Claire couldn't imagine the rest of the world being anything but this stormy canvas, streaked with white foam and tide ripples, different shades of green and grey crashing against one another. There was a gentle curve to the horizon, barely distinguishable as the water was the same colour as the sky, flocks of restless seagulls circling low over it, their cries mutes by the thundering clash of waves against the sand. An endless song of shhhhhhh, shhhhhhh.

She had never even imagined anything quite as magnificent. She had never felt so free.

And when she turned to Owen to make sure he was seeing what she was seeing and feeling what she was feeling, his palm curled over her cheek, and he was kissing her, softly and slowly, his lips warm against hers, almost scalding in the frigid air, his fingers pushing through her hair. He only pulled back when they were back down at the gate, both of them breathless, their lips swollen. Somewhere up above the ground, something inside Claire finally let go, and when Owen helped her out of their yellow pod, she clutched his hand tight, fearing she might soar into the sky.

"Where did it go?" Owen asked softly. "That feeling that everything was going to be okay. One day, all is right. It's rocky, but still... right. And the next, I wake up without you and nothing makes sense. But I still remember your phone number and…" He swallowed, his voice hollow somehow. "And I can't get you out of my head, even after—"

He stayed quiet for a long moment, and Claire promptly forgot how to breathe.

"Why are you calling me?" She whispered.

"I went to your sister's dinner the other day because I promised Gray I would, and I hoped against all hope you'd be there. I kept looking for you among half a dozen people like—like you could just… I'm such an idiot… thought you'd be there because…" He inhaled sharply. "Why do the stars look so bright in winter? Is it because the space's also cold?"

The rest of his sentence was swallowed by a loud honking.

"Owen, where are you?" She asked, instantly alarmed.

"Joe's," he responded absently, and it took Claire a moment to remember that it was a bar on the other side of town. Not exactly her scene but not the seediest place one could end up in on a Friday night. "All cars are dark at night," he muttered. "Why bother painting them in colours when--"

She sat up and kicked away the comforter draped over her legs. "You have got to be kidding me. You can't drive!"

"Not gonna," he promised her, not sounding particularly convincing. "Just need to-"

"Okay, look…" Claire tucked her hair behind her ear and turned on the reading lamp near the couch, blinking fast in the sudden onslaught of light, her mind racing. Mr. Smithy glared at her from the armchair when she rushed past him into the hallway. "Stay where you are. I'll be there in—10, maybe 15 minutes." Where they hell were her car keys? "Owen?"

There was a long pause before he spoke again. "Yeah. Not going. Staying."

Her car keys were nowhere to be found, so she grabbed the set to Karen's Kia instead. What difference did it make anyway?

At four in the morning, even with the pale half-moon hanging high up in the sky, the world looked pitch black. She took a wrong turn and ended up on a dead end street, cursing under her breath, and then had to backtrack when she came across a construction site that closed one of the side roads. The asphalt was dark and slippery under the wheels of the car, crusted with a thin layer of ice, and Claire tried to remember now if Karen changed the tires to the winter ones, wondering absently if her rescue mission was going to end up with her wrapping the hood of her sister's sedan around a telephone pole.

It took her almost half an hour to find the right neighborhood, the tension finally leaving her shoulders when she spotted bright lights of the shop windows and cafes stretched along the street, bright even in the dead of night.

A police car and an ambulance zipped past her at the intersection, making Claire grip the steering wheel tight to keep the car from barreling into a snowdrift on the curb of the road. Sirens blaring, they took her turn, and Claire's heart dropped into her stomach.

"Oh, God, no," she breathed out, speeding up after them. No, no, no…

To be continued...

A/N: Thanks fo the long wait, guys! Comments are much appreciated :D I really love this story and I hope you do, too!