A/N: Bah, the pacing is still sort of slow. Next chapter things will start to pick up ;3! Interaction between Zach and Leah isn't happening as much as I'd like, only because I'm not sure how to write it at a pace I feel is necessary in order for them to grow quite close. At the moment Leah isn't his biggest fan, but that'll change soon enough ;)! Enjoy!

Zach sighed softly as Gray pushed passed a crowd of people that were pressed up against the glass. He had led them to the T-Rex exhibit so they could watch it be fed. He stayed more towards the back while Gray pushed forward to get a better look while Leah stayed back, content with watching from where she was. She jumped a bit when she heard the low groan of the T-Rex as she approached, heavy footfalls slightly shaking the floor as she appeared from the tree's and moved to the goat that had been set out for her. A little boy was chanting for her to eat it, and everyone made sounds of disgust as she finally grabbed the goat up in one bite, the sound of bones crunching making most of the tourists cringe. Sounds of disgust and excitement were mixed together among the crowd.

Leah snapped a picture as some people moved away, looking over when Zach's phone rang. He dug through his pocket and pulled out his phone, bringing it to his ear.

"Hey, mom." He paused, and Leah figured his mother was asking him how things were and how he was. "Yeah, uh, I guess. Aunt Claire gave us passes so we don't have to wait in line."

He locked gazes with Leah and she quickly turned away, not wanting to seem like she was eavesdropping on his conversation. She moved closer to the glass as people filed out of the exhibit, standing beside Gray so she could watch the creature.

"She's got some scars." Gray pointed out. Leah looked closely and sure enough, the Tyrannosaur's skin was marred around her neck and shoulder area. "I wonder how she got them?"

"I heard she was at the original park." She looked up and noticed the T-Rex was staring at them from her place outside. "Maybe something attacked her after everyone left?"

As she studied her, she paid close attention to her eyes. They looked tired, weary almost. The animal had been alive for probably twenty plus years, maybe even before Jurassic Park had started to be built. It was a wonder she was still alive. As far as she knew, none of the other animals from the original park had lived as long as this one had, and she wondered if that was what made her so popular with the tourists. For something so large and dangerous, this creature was calm, almost curious about the humans watching her. Leah had read Alan Grant's book about his experience with the park, and how this particular Tyrannosaur had nearly killed him and John Hammond's two grandchildren when the power had gone out with the electrical fences, allowing her to escape and roam free.

"Why are you just staring at it?"

She frowned and looked up to find Zach standing beside her now, hands shoved in his pockets. Her attention went back to the beast in front of them.

"It's nice to watch and appreciate something that should still be extinct, yet it's here in front of us like this. Some people will never get to experience something like this ever. They say staring into an animal's eyes is like staring into their soul." Leah explained, bringing her camera up and taking a quick picture before the Rex could move away. She got a few good shots before the creature let out a yawn and lazily turned away, wandering back into the forested enclosure.

Gray led the way out, deciding they would go see the Mosasaurus next.

"So, where are you from?" Zach asked, making small talk as they walked. He usually didn't have a hard time talking to any other girl. It all came naturally to him, but with her he found it almost...difficult.

"Utah. You?"

"Illinois. Are you here by yourself?"

"I came by myself." She explained, fixing her hair as they walked. "My uncle works here though, so I'm staying with him during the break."

"He ditch you too?" Leah swore she could hear resentment in his voice.

She frowned. "Nah. He's meeting up with me later." She ran a hand through her hair and held her hair tie between her lips as she pulled her hair into a messy bun, holding it in place and tying it off so it was away from her neck. "We're going to ride all the rides we can today!"

"Like the spining dinosaur eggs!?" Gray asked excitedly.

Leah grinned. "Yep! Even the spinning dinosaur eggs!"

Zach watched the two walk ahead of him, Gray holding onto Leah's hand as they walked side by side. It was like she was a kid!

"How old did you say you were?" Zach asked.

"Seventeen, same age as you." She hummed, looking back at him over her shoulder with a smile. She had a really nice smile. "Except you act like a grumpy old man." She laughed at the frown he gave her.

"He's just grumpy because he misses his girlfriend." Gray said.

"Shut-up." Zach hissed.

"Oh, it must be so very hard for you." Leah teased.

"For your information, I broke up with her as soon as we got on the flight to come here."

"Really now?" When he didn't answer her she thought about asking what happened, deciding against it and turning back around, watching what was in front of her as Gray led the way to the Mosasaur Lagoon for the show. The arena was huge, and people were already packing in. Because they had VIP passes, they were able to get a seat towards the middle in the lower section, providing them with a good view of the water. Leah slipped her backpack off and opened it, pulling out the case for her camera and setting it inside so it wouldn't get damaged by the water (they were in the splash zone) that would inevitably get on them. She ended up sitting next to Zach, watching him take his phone out and mess with it. Rolling her eyes, she looked around as more people poured in for the show. In her pocket, she felt her own phone vibrate.

She pulled it out and answered it quickly. "Hello?"

"Hey, how's the tour?" It was Owen.

"Ah, it had to be delayed. Dr. Fox had to go take care of an emergency so she left me with the others that were supposed to go with us. Right now we're about to see the Mosasaur. She swore she heard someone talking in the background, like a woman. However it was hard to hear what her uncle was saying because of the loud people around them. "Uh, I can't really hear you."

"I said I'm going to be a little bit late meeting up with you. I was asked to go check out a paddock. I'll call you when I'm finished, alright?"

"Okay. Love you."

"Love you too."

The line clicked and she hummed, pulling her phone away from her ear just in time as the caretaker for the Mosasaur came onto the PA to talk about the show.

"Welcome to the Mosasaur Show. My name is Alicia Bryant, and I'm the caretaker of our park's Mosasaur."

She talked about her background for a bit, and how she had been working with marine mammals for about 10 years before she took the job here. She could hear Gray snapping pictures every few seconds on the other side of Zach, smiling a bit. Of course, Zach wasn't paying attention and probably not listening to anything being said.

"The Mosasaurus was thought to have hunted near the surface of the water, preying on anything it could sink its teeth into, including turtles, large fish, even smaller Mosasaurs."

Leah looked up as a dead shark was moved over the water, hanging quite a ways up from it on a pulley system. "Oh, they're going to feed it." She mused.

"All right, folks, let's see if she's still hungry after already eating today." The shark came to a stop, dangling lifelessly. "She's a little shy, so be nice and give her a big hand when she comes out."

Gray grabbed Zach's shoulder and shook it. "Zach, the Mosasaurus."

He didn't answer, and Leah looked at him, noticing he was looking at a girl on his phone. She was a cute blonde with pretty eyes and a pretty face. In her hands, she held what looked like a sticky note with the words 'miss you' on it. She figured it was the girlfriend he claimed he broke up with.

"Zach, Zach, the Mosasaurs!"

Leah tore her gaze away and turned it onto the water, watching as the Mosasaurus swam up towards the surface at a fast pace. She was startled at the low roar it gave as it jumped from the water and up towards the shark, chomping down on it. Zach had looked up in time to see it, watching as it pulled the shark from the pulley and fell back down into the water. Beside him, Leah screamed as the water hit them, soaking them thoroughly. Gray was laughing on his other side, and he couldn't help but laugh with him. Gray grabbed his shoulder.

"Oh my god! That was awesome!" He exclaimed, looking over at Leah. "That was so cool!"

She giggled and nodded, looking around as their seats began to move down.

"Hold on tight. We're going to give you an even closer look at our Mosasaur."

It was much like Sea World, the glass below the arena providing a clear view of the Mosasaur and the shark she had taken a bite out of, blood oozing from it and making a small trail in the water. Sounds came from the tank and Leah smiled, finding them oddly soothing and similar to that of a whale. She clapped like everyone else, watching as the Mosasaur grabbed the rest of the shark and ate it, people standing up and cheering excitedly.

"It had eighty-eight teeth!" Gray pointed out, lifting his camera and snapping a few pictures with it. Leah used her phone, sending the best one to Owen.

Zach laughed beside her and she couldn't help but smile up at him when he nudged her, pleased he was actually enjoying himself. "You guys wanna see something else cool?"

Leah nodded and Gray smiled eagerly. "Yeah!"

After snapping a few more good pictures, the trio left the arena and tried to figure out where to go next. Leah had a park map opened up on her phone, looking at the locations and schedules. "We could go on the river tour. Or we could go to the Aviaty."

Zach looked at the map over her shoulder, studying it for a moment. "What about the Gyrospheres? That sounds pretty cool."

Leah tapped it, pulling a description up. "It's a ride, kind of like a free hand safari if that makes sense? You control the vehicle and where you want to go." She looked at Gray and showed him her phone so he could read it. "What do you think? Does it sound like fun?"

Gray jumped up and down excitedly. "Yes! Can we go?"

Zach looked at him and then Leah, smiling slightly. "Sure. Lead the way."

"To the Gyrospheres!"

Allison sighed softly as she sat by the sedated Stegosaur calf, petting its neck soothingly as she ran some tests on it, taking cultures from its mouth and drawing blood so they could figure out what the problem seemed to be. She ran a hand through her brown locks, sighing again and laying her head back against the wall. "I don't understand. She was fine this morning when I left. Her samples from yesterday came back nice and clean."

Her assistant looked over at her, pausing her work with the slides. "Do you think we may have missed something?"

She shook her head. "No. I don't miss anything like that. I even had Jack look and he didn't see anything either. Was there anything strange about her when I left earlier?"

The assistant, Marissa, shook her head after she thought about it. "No, not at all. We kept her in the quarantine area outside for a bit like you instructed and she really perked up. Katherine walked around with her the entire time and made sure nothing out of the ordinary happened."

"And Katherine wouldn't miss anything like that..." She whispered to herself, stroking the Stegosaurs' head gently. "Kat, c'mere!"

Katherine Grant was a twenty-six year old that had recently received her bachelor's degree in animal science just a year ago. When she had been six years old, her father had brought her and her older sister Cora to Jurassic Park for the evaluation. It was meant to be a nice family bonding experience as they were not so close to their father, and being in his care was incredibly uncommon. Memories from the park were vague, except for waking up in the back seat of the unharmed jeep to find she had been left all by herself until her father's girlfriend at the time and the game warden of the park discovered her. To this day, her father and sister still couldn't believe she had slept through the entire incident with the T-Rex.

But perhaps it was best that way, since she often worked with the Tyrannosaur that had wreaked havoc on the original Jurassic Park twenty years ago.

She walked in quickly upon being called, blonde locks pulled back in a ponytail. "What's up?"

"Marissa said you were with the baby this morning after I left."

She nodded. "That's right."

"Did she eat anything odd?"

"No. She mostly ran around while she was out in the pasture. She's been so cooped up inside here all week, so she was happy to be back outside."

Allison nodded, standing up carefully and handing the blood sample over to her assistant. "Take a look at this for me, will you?"

"I will. Where are you going?"

"To have a word with Dr. Lange. I want to know why the hell he told you to put the baby back in the field with the others."

The two watched her leave, Marissa getting back to work with the samples while Katherine sat with the Stegosaur calf. Like the rest of the animals, she was created, not born to an animal here at the park. Allison had practically raised her, caring for the sickly calf as soon as it had hatched. It often caught a cold, and it was always easily treatable and gone within days. It was cute how it thought Allison was its mother, but other doctors on the island like Dr. Lange thought it was wrong for her to raise the calf. Herd behaviors were what he tended to study, and since these animals weren't born inside the park to a mother, it would not be possible to see how a herd would react to an infant dinosaur. Most caretakers thought it unwise, only introducing the animals to their herd slowly and at a particular age.

This calf, who they all had affectionately called Ivy, had roamed with her kind before. And they had accepted her. The hope had been one of the females would accept Ivy like she were her own calf, but it had not happened. And that was a stressful situation for a creature that was still dependent on a parent. So Allison would let the baby roam with the herd each day, and the baby would come back to her by the end of the day to go back to her own little enclosure at the rehab center.

At the end of the hall, Allison was yelling into her phone.

"What the hell makes you think you can come in here and give clearance for something you're not in charge of?"

"You can't keep that calf inside the center forever, Dr. Fox. You know that as well as I do."

She grit her teeth, gripping the phone so tight that her knuckles began to whiten. Eric Lange was a frustrating man in his late forties that always ran his own agenda, much like Vic Hoskins did. He had more experience with the animals than most of the people working here did aside from Henry Wu. Having been a key scientist for InGen back in the nineties, he had also been a part of the San Diego initiative, given the position of head doctor before the project was shut down completely after what had happened. When Simon Masrani had bought the rights for InGen, he hired Lange like he did Wu, based on their experience with the original park and their credentials of course.

In terms of experience Lange had more than she did and that was all fine with her. However he wasn't in charge of the rehabilitation department and therefore had no authorization to do so.

He had come to Marissa and told her that Allison had given him permission to authorize it.

"I'm in charge of this facility, Dr. Lange. I've told you that you are more than welcome to study her out in the field but she is not to stay out there until she's old enough. Is that understood?"

He laughed and Allison felt her already thin patience declining at an alarming rate. "You sound just like Sorkin. That calf is going to have to go out into the herd sooner or later, and I'll be there to make sure it does."

The line clicked and Allison slammed the phone down, rubbing her temples. Katherine came in not long after.

"I'm heading over to Control to pick up some stuff. Need anything?"

"Yeah, a cannon so I can send Lange to the moon."

Katherine giggled. "How does coffee sound?"

"Lovely. Thank you." She smiled graciously, practically collapsing back into her desk chair and sighing.

"I'll be back then!" Katherine ducked out and closed the door, leaving the good doctor to herself.

Allison leaned back in her seat, closing her eyes as she tried to relax. It was short lived as her phone rang. With a sigh, she leaned forward and grabbed it. "This is Allison."

She recognized the familiar voice of Claire Dearing, the woman's breathing ragged.

"We have an asset out of containment."

A/N: Ohohoh~! Thanks so much for all the favorites and follows! I really appreciate and I'm very happy that you guys are liking this so far! Thank you! See you next time!