Author's Note

Whelp, time for another chapter. The raptors show up now, yay! This is probably one of my favorite chapters, especially the Owen part at the end.

Go onward and enjoy!

Birthdays

Being with her mom or being with her dad, Liv's never really cared for either very much. Her mom has an apartment in Miami. During any given week, Liv will see her mom maybe a handful of times, and almost always just in passing. She can easily go an entire day without seeing her mom at all. The solitude is nice sometimes, like what she has in her paradise on the island, but most of the time it's just lonely. She may not need her mom to take care of herself, being with her mom may be easy, but it's not what she wishes she had.

Being with her dad on the island means a lot more people. Sometimes she'll go out to the park to interact with the tourists, making nice with them, helping those who are lost or looking for a specific attraction, but she's never forged anything beyond temporary acquaintances. Both her parents have a ban on friends. It's one of the few things they actually agree on. She's to focus on her studies, make it into a good college, and step right into a terrific career. She wouldn't be surprised if one or both of them have her entire future planned out for her already. And none of it includes friends. Being on the island and in the park circumvents that a little bit, but it far from fills the hole she almost physically feels deep in her chest.

Being with Vic also means the possibility of being beaten. That's the only plus side to being with her mom.

But when the two weeks with her mom start to wind down this time, her weekend with Vic fast approaching, Liv actually sees herself looking forward to it. And it's because of Owen and those raptors.

Owen is probably the closest thing Liv has to a friend. Claire is a close second, but that relationship is still a little too stiff, though that's not to say it couldn't change one day. Still, Owen made her laugh and genuinely smile. When was the last time she did either of those things that wasn't out of politeness or completely fake? She honestly can't say. Being with him, it makes her feel like a real, whole person, and she's quickly becoming addicted to the feeling.

And then there's the raptors. She's really looking forward to watching them grow up. She knows they're not pets but…she hopes she can take part in their lives at least. Maybe help take care of them. Even if it's just carrying pales of food or whatever. They're supposed to hatch soon, and as Liv goes from the plane to the helicopter, leg bouncing impatiently all the way, she hopes that day will be today. Especially today.

The helicopter barely touches down on the helipad and then she's racing from it, towards the Control Room in her search for Vic. She's actually trying to find her father as fast as possible. The sooner she checks in with Vic, the sooner she can go to the Research Center. Thankfully, Vic is already in the Control Room, hovering over the shoulder of one of the workers stationed at a computer. She tolls down her excitement so that he won't notice and waits for him to acknowledge her. All she gets is a quick look and a reminder of her curfew.

She winces. That actually hurts this time. He's obviously forgotten what today is. Though it's rare that he actually remembers and she wasn't really expecting anything from him anyway. She brushes it off, or, at least, tries to. It shouldn't matter. Her mom didn't remember either, didn't even take the chance to say goodbye.

With the absentminded dismissal she heads towards the elevator, giving Claire a passing wave. She spends the ride over to the Research Center pushing aside Vic's forgetfulness, purging it from her mind, and focusing on the raptors. Will they be hatched already? Will they hatch today? Tomorrow? Not until next week and she'll have to miss it? She parks her ATV and races inside the building and then to the back room.

Two other trainers are in there, one on a computer on the far wall and the other, a black man, standing beside Owen with a tablet, both of them with eyes on the eggs, still unhatched. But not unmoving. They're jiggling slightly.

When Owen sees her he smiles. "Hey, Liv. Have a good two weeks at school?"

The question takes her aback, that he would care how she is doing in school, since Vic only ever pays attention when it's time for a report card. Owen seems to genuinely care though, and more than about just grades. She smiles and walks over to him. "School was good. We started reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in my English class."

"Nothing like a couple of kids sneaking off to get into trouble. I take it you like it?"

"Yeah, I like it a lot actually. I can sort of relate."

He smirks, knowing she's talking about her own little adventures. "I'm sure you do."

"So are the eggs going to hatch soon?"

"Barry?" Owen asks, turning to his companion.

"According to our scans," Barry says, his voice accented, possibly French, and looking down at his tablet, "the eggs can hatch anywhere from a few hours to three days."

Liv's eyes light up with glee. "So they could hatch today?"

"They could," Owen emphasizes. "But we won't know for certain until it happens. In the meantime, we monitor the eggs and watch them in shifts."

"If there is an increase in movement or any breaks in the shells," Barry holds up his tablet, "we will know, but the eggs must not hatch alone. Owen has to be here in order to imprint on them."

"For now, all we can do is watch and wait." Owen holds out his hand for the tablet and Barry hands it to him. "I'll watch the eggs for now."

Barry nods. "I will come relieve you in a few hours."

Barry leaves, the other trainer heading out with him, and Owen pulls over a desk chair to sit near the incubator. "I can't take you out into the Valley until the eggs are hatched," Owen tells her with an apologetic smile, "but you don't have to stay here. It's gonna be a boring couple of hours."

Liv shakes her head. "No, I want to stay. I want to be here when they hatch, if I can. Is that okay?"

"Sure thing, kid." He reaches over with his foot and pulls up another chair. "Sit, relax. It'll probably be a while yet, even if they do hatch today."

Time passes really slowly as they wait. Not long in, Liv goes to collect her backpack from her ATV so she can do homework. She reads the assigned chapters of Tom Sawyer and when she's done she's tempted to read a little further, but she forces herself to stop and move on to a different subject. She does the take-home quiz for her science class next and it's easy, science being one of her better subjects. Then she pulls out her math homework.

This she struggles on for a good hour, only getting through six of the thirty questions in that time. Liv does really well in school, her parents expect it of her and she studies hard to live up to that expectation, but math has always been her absolute weakest subject.

She's chewing on her pencil, staring at the same problem for ten minutes, when Owen asks, "Need some help?"

Her pencil fall out of her mouth in surprise, her hands flailing to barely catch it. They have been mostly silent until now, Owen quietly working on the tablet and watching the eggs. Now, he's leaning towards her slightly, looking down at the textbook in her lap.

"It's, um, math," she mumbles a little self-consciously. "I've, uh, been having kind of a hard time with it lately."

He lifts the cover of her book up to take a look. "Algebra I? I thought they didn't teach that until high school?"

She shrugs. "I'm in eighth grade, taking advanced classes."

He looks her over incredulously. "Seriously? You're in eighth grade?"

She sticks her tongue out at him childishly, not really proving she's older than he's probably thinking but not caring. "Yes, I'm in eighth grade." She's really short for her age, only a little over four and a half feet, and people always assume she's in elementary school. Hopefully, she gets a growth spurt soon because it can get kind of annoying sometimes.

He must see her irritation because he holds up his hands, though suppressing a chuckle. "Alright, alright, I believe you. So do you want help with your homework or not?"

Liv looks down at her notebook paper, not even halfway finished. She's never asked for help on homework before. Although, it's more like she's never had anyone to ask. She's always struggled with it on her own.

It would be nice if that could change.

"Yeah," she says, sliding her chair closer to his and angling her book so he can read the problems as well, "I think I'd like some help."

When teachers suddenly started saying that letters were a part of math as well, not just numbers, Liv got a little confused. The teacher she has now doesn't have a teaching style that makes it easy for her to understand. She knows others in the class are struggling so she doesn't feel so bad about it. But with Owen explaining things, everything starts to make a lot more sense. And it seems a lot more fun. She's never laughed so hard doing math in her life.

They're laughing so hard that they almost miss the little scratching noise. The insistent beeping coming from the tablet, though, is loud and clear. They sober instantly, Owen scooping up the tablet from where he placed in on the floor and flicking through it with his finger. He then looks up at the eggs with wide eyes. One of them, it's shaking a lot harder than the others and a long crack has formed.

Owen quickly stands, his chair falling back behind him, and lunges for the gloves. "Liv, you need to leave the room, now," he says urgently.

"What? Why?" He said she could be here when they hatched. Now he's telling her she has to leave, and it hurts.

"I'm sorry but I have to be the only one in here when they hatch. If I'm not what they see first, they could end up imprinting on someone else." He yanks on the gloves and approaches the eggs slowly. The crack grows a little more. "Go get the others, they should be in the paddock. Tell them what's happening and then I need all of you to wait in the other room."

She does as she's told, rushing off to the paddock as fast as she can and running up to the first trainer she sees, who turns out to be Barry. He quickly takes over, gathering the others, and they all settle down in the main room of the Research Center to wait.

As they do, Liv chastises herself, automatically assuming that Owen was pushing her away like that, going back on his word. He wouldn't do that.

Right?

She's mostly just known people who would do that though. In the long run, will Owen really be any different?

Time passes again, she's not sure how much, could be minutes or hours. Finally Owen comes out of the back room with a dopey grin on his face. "They've hatched," he says with breathless excitement, like a joyous father giving the news his babies were born. "Four female Velociraptors. All completely healthy."

"Is the imprinting working?" Barry asks.

"I think so. They didn't try to bite my fingers off when I was feeding them in any case. They're sleeping now. Come on and see."

Everyone piles into the room, Liv going no further than the doorway. They deserve to see this more than her. She'll wait. The trainers gather around the nest, checking over the raptors' vitals, and discussing the next steps in quiet voices so as not to wake the hatchlings.

She leaves them to their planning, waiting patiently. Well, not so patiently. She's jittery, can't stand still, and every few minutes she tries to get a look at the hatchlings through the crowd of trainers but never manages to see anything except the side of the nest. It isn't long until they leave, though, probably to get the paddock in ship shape for its new residents, and then there they are, the raptors.

They remind her so much of dogs that, for a moment, she just blinks at them. They're each curled up and piled together in the center of the nest, like newborn puppies in a cardboard box. Except less fur. They're also bigger than newborn puppies but still smaller than she thought they would be, like over-sized geckos. Their heads look too big for them to lift, eyes large beneath closed eyelids, and long tails curved around them. They have big, strong hind legs, already with the beginnings of claws that will one day be deadly sharp, and small arms, though longer than what a T-Rex baby would have.

Their coloring is amazing. One is green with splotches of blue around her eyes. Another is dark green with a row of stripes slashed across her from head to tail in an even darker green. The third is sandy colored, with splotches of green and light blue stripes. The last one is all blue-gray, with two dark blue stripes running from either side of her face down to the tip of her tail. Already, Liv can tell each of the raptors will possess a deadly beauty about them.

Right now, she never thought she would call Velociraptors cute but, holy crap, these raptors are cute.

"Have you named them yet?" Liv whispers, drawing closer to Owen and the nest, eyes never leaving the raptors.

"Not yet," Owen says just as quietly. "We thought we'd wait a while, see what their personalities are going to be like and how the pack formation goes."

Her brow furrows. "But I thought you were the alpha? Isn't that all there is to a pack?"

"Packs can have a lot of different parts, but with one this small, you're right, there won't be many. I'll still be the alpha but most likely one of them will take charge of the others, giving them a leader that's their own kind. That one will be the beta. She's the one I'll have to watch out for most. If I can't get her to trust me and she decides to take over as alpha, then this entire project will fall apart."

One of the raptors, the blue-gray one, suddenly blinks her large, slitted eyes open and lets out a squeaky little chittering noise. She's looking right at Liv and Liv can't help but stare into those big eyes, mesmerized. Those eyes, they look so intelligent. Like the raptor isn't just looking at her but actually seeing her and understanding what it is she sees. The raptor lets out that chittering noise again and then the other raptors wake up, all of them looking at Liv and she smiles, big and bright, because they're just so precious it makes her want to cry a little. She reaches out a hand as if to pet them but then stops, bringing her hand back to rest against her stomach, figuring that probably wouldn't be a good idea.

"Do you want to pet one?" Owen asks, guessing her intent.

She looks up at him hopefully. "Can I? It won't be too dangerous or anything?"

"This young, no, it shouldn't be a problem. They're small enough to where I can keep them from hurting you, but this will probably be the only time you get a chance." Owen reaches into the nest and gently lifts the blue-gray raptor into his hands, fingers wrapping around the small body and his thumb and forefinger of one hand keeping the raptor's head in place. The raptor surprisingly doesn't struggle, instead shifting her attention to look up at Owen, like a baby trusting her mother to hold her without dropping her.

"That imprinting really must have worked," Liv says as she pulls on a pair of gloves.

"Seems like it so far, but they won't tolerate stuff like this for long. Raptors mature really fast and don't need a parent taking care of them for very long until they're ready to survive on their own. I figure I've got maybe two months max before they need to shift their perspective of me from parent to alpha." He holds the raptor close to her. "It'll be best if you avoid the mouth. They just ate but she may still bite."

With that in mind, Liv strokes a fingertip along the back of the raptor's neck, letting out a giddy laugh. She's really petting a Velociraptor. She's gone to the park's petting zoo before, to pet the baby herbivores, but this is something different, something almost magical, to pet a newborn. The skin feels rough through the glove, kind of like crocodile hide except more bumpy, but it still feels so fragile that she's afraid to actually press down too hard, like if she does the bones beneath the skin will break. Still, she's careful and she's petting a Velociraptor.

"Best. Birthday. Ever."

"What did you say?" Owen asks in astonishment.

Liv winces. "I said that out loud, didn't I?"

"Yeah, you did." He sets the raptor back in the nest and then looks at her in, strangely, concern. "Is today your birthday?" She nods. "Why didn't you say anything?"

She just shrugs a shoulder. Honestly, she doesn't really know. Habit, maybe? Besides, why would Owen care when her birthday is? He barely knows her.

His brow furrows. "Vic didn't say anything either. Didn't even mention his daughter's birthday was coming up."

She snorts, muttering, "Yeah, didn't say anything to me either." Mentioning that it's her birthday to either of her parents usually gets her an exasperated, annoyed look. She has to rely on them to remember for themselves. This year, neither of them remembered at all. Which is a first, actually. Normally, at least one of them remembers, sometimes with a present, most of the time just with a passing "happy birthday". Neither of them ever actually feel happy about it. Or make her feel happy about it.

Owen curses under his breath and she flinches a little. She shouldn't have said that. She's not supposed to ever say anything that could suggest what her relationship with Vic is really like, how he really treats her behind closed doors. To everyone else, he's supposed to be the hardworking father, maybe a little strict, with a gifted, well-behaved daughter. But with Owen, she's slipping left and right.

How long will it be until she falls? And when she reaches the bottom, how much is it going to hurt? How much will Vic hurt her if someone found out?

Then Owen is stepping forward, wrapping his arms around her in a crushing hug. She stands there, stunned, with her face pressed against his chest.

"Never again," he says, voice fierce. "You hear me? Your birthday won't be forgotten ever again. From now on we'll celebrate, even if it's just you and me. Well, you, me, and the raptors, since they now have the same birthday as you."

Then again, maybe there will be someone there to catch her. She may slip and fall but he'll keep her from getting hurt.

Tears spill down Liv's face as her arms wrap around Owen's waist, fingers clenching at the back of his vest. She closes her eyes, burying her face in his shirt and he holds her tighter. She's never been hugged before. Not like this. This is all caring and comfort and safety and everything a father's hug should be. It makes her feel wanted. Like her birthday really is a good thing.

Why can't she always have this? Why did she have to get Vic? Why is it that this man who has known her for maybe two days, total, cares about her more than her own parents ever have? She doesn't even know why he cares so much about her but she isn't going to question it. Not if it means she gets to have this. A part of her is scared that he doesn't mean any of it, that this is all just an act or he'll one day leave her, but in this moment it feels real. And she will cling to it for as long as she can, just in case it doesn't last. Like with petting the raptors, this could be the only chance she gets at feeling what family is supposed to be like, because, as awful as it sounds, her mom and dad aren't really her family. Not as they should be. She's starting to realize that now.

But maybe family doesn't actually have anything to do with blood. Maybe it's more to do with who she chooses to spend her life with. Right now, she's choosing Owen, and a couple of Velociraptors.

And those Velociraptors share the same birthday as her. That practically makes them family already.

Owen is a fairly decent cook. He knows how to do the quick basics, something fast and simple. The Navy ensured he could live off of fast and simple. He also knows how to cook the dishes he really likes, lasagna, pot roast, steak, whatever gets his stomach rumbling. He's an excellent hunter and knows how to skin and cook game, anything from rabbits to deer. Even alligator. He makes a mean gator tail.

But baking. That's something he's never actually tried before.

Finding a recipe for a cake online is easy enough, gathering the ingredients even easier, but then he freezes before he even starts cooking. What kind of cake does Liv like? Chocolate? Vanilla? Marble? Ice-cream cake?

Does she even know herself?

He shakes that thought away. Surely she knows, surely her parents aren't that hopeless, but he can't ask her without giving away what he's doing so he goes with chocolate. Everyone likes chocolate cake.

Right?

He's so out of his depth with this but he keeps going, mixing the items together and sticking it in the oven. His first attempt is an utter disaster, it doesn't even rise like a proper fluffy cake is supposed to, so he's forced to scrap the entire thing and start over.

He freezes again, afraid he's not going to get it right before he runs out of supplies, but he can't think about that now. Liv deserves this. She deserves a proper birthday, even if it will be a day late.

The second attempt is much, much better and he lets out a sigh of relief. The cake isn't even runny when he sticks a knife in it and pulls it out again like it suggests to do in the instructions. He flounders a little bit at icing, but the recipe he found has instructions on how to make that from scratch too. Thankfully it turns out right the first time and he ices the cake.

He debates on trying to figure out how to write "Happy Birthday, Liv" on top, in icing. He goes with spelling it out with chocolate chips instead.

It's well past midnight when he finishes but he forces himself to wrap the present he picked out for her before crashing on his bed, not even bothering to get under the blankets.

The next day, the box he puts the cake in nearly falls off from where he straps it to the back of his bike, but it makes it to the Research Center in one piece. When he gets there he stuffs it in the fridge as fast as he can. There's no sign of Liv, not even her ATV, but she could show up at any time.

It's almost ten when she does, anxious to see the raptors again. He sends her back with Barry to keep an eye on her and to keep her busy while Owen finishes getting the cake ready. Setting it out on the counter, he takes out a pack of candles he stuck in his pocket at the last minute before leaving his bungalow. Painstakingly, he sticks fourteen of them in a ring along the outside and lights them one by one, fourteen candles for fourteen years.

He wishes he's known her for more of them.

With steady hands, he carries the cake into the back room, the door thankfully left open for him. His eyes stay on the cake nearly the entire slow walk, afraid he's going to drop it, but when he crosses the threshold his eyes shift up to land on Liv.

She's at the nest, back to him, but by the way she bounces on her toes he can tell there's probably a huge smile on her face. One of the raptors, the sandy colored one, is trying to stand on her feet, her other three sisters already walking around the little nest. Thankfully, they know better than to try to jump down from the incubator. There's a good chance they would hurt themselves from a fall like that, but they won't be in here for much longer, Owen and the others planning on moving them into the stables later today where Owen will spend a lot of close, one-on-one time with them to help the imprinting grow and prosper into a strong bond.

He's about halfway to her when he starts singing, poorly and off-key, "Happy birthday to you."

Liv's shoulders tense.

"Happy birthday to you."

She slowly turns, mouth slightly gaping and eyes wide, focusing first on him and then dropping to the cake.

"Happy birthday, dear Liv."

He draws out the "i" in her name in a sing-song voice and she doesn't look away from the cake as he finally stands before her. It hardly looks like she even breathes.

"Happy birthday to you."

The song ends and silence draws the minutes out, so long that Owen begins to worry. "Do you not like it?" he asks as she just continues to stare in shock. "You don't like chocolate, do you? I can make you something else, I-"

"No," she says, voice squeaking slightly. She looks up at him slowly. "No, I…I love chocolate."

He lets out a relieved laugh. "Good, good. That's…that's good." He cocks his head at her curiously when she still doesn't move. "Is something else wrong then?"

"I…." She looks back and forth between Owen and Barry, wringing her hands together. "I…."

Barry suddenly holds out his hands to Owen. "Give me the cake," he demands, one eyebrow raised in humor.

Owen does so a little dumbfounded, unsure as to what's going on, but then he has an armful of Liv, her skinny arms wrapped around his waist.

"Thank you," she sniffles into his chest, over and over again, and he immediately returns the hug, holding her close.

"I'm sorry it's a day late," he says against the top of her head.

She shakes her head, stepping back out of the embrace and wiping at her eyes. "It's not your fault. But seriously, thank you. This is the best thing anyone's ever done for me on my birthday."

He can hear the "If not ever" hanging in the air between them but doesn't comment on it. Instead he says, "I got you a present, too."

Her eyes widen even further, if possible. "You did?"

"Yep." He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out the gift. It's not much of a present, really, just newspaper folded into a small square with a bulge in the middle and a piece of twine holding it together in a bow. "Sorry it's nothing fancy."

She smiles like it's the best thing she's ever seen. "No apologies necessary." She takes the gift from him and quickly unwraps it. It's a necklace, a black leather chord with an animal tooth, long and curved, hanging from it with a piece of wire. She rubs the pad of her thumb along the sharp tip in fascination. "What animal is this from?"

"My dad was a carnie during most of the early years of his life," he explains. "Started out as a stable boy but they quickly found out he had a way with animals. By the time he was twenty he was training them for performances. That tooth is from the hardest animal he ever trained but also the one he was proudest of. It's a tiger's tooth. Some days, my dad and that tiger didn't get along at all. One time, the tiger even took a swipe at him that left a permanent scar." He gestures to the left side of his face with his finger, tracing from his forehead all the way down his neck. "It messed him up pretty bad. The tiger made every performance, though, without a hitch. You see, my dad said that an animal's respect can be a fickle thing, but if you truly earned its trust? That animal will be loyal to you forever." He takes the necklace from her, putting in over her head and around her neck. "My dad gave this to me when I was your age. Now it's yours."

Liv panics a little trying to take it off. "I can't take this from you-"

"You can and you will." He places his hands over hers, stilling her. "I want you to have it, Liv. Please."

He wants her to have this little piece of him so that no matter where she is, whether it's back in the States with her mom or alone here on the island, she'll remember he'll always be there for her if she needs him.

After a minute she slowly nods. "Okay. Thank you, Owen."

He smiles, ruffling her hair and making her laugh. "Anytime, kid. Anytime. And happy birthday."

Author's Note

Honestly, that part where Liv called the raptors cute? That's basically what I was thinking by the end of Jurassic World. In the other movies, the raptors were always some of the main antagonists, but in this movie? They're fragging cute!

By the way, Owen's backstory? Completely made up. I have no idea if his dad was a carnie. I blame Clint Barton for that one.

Next chapter will be posted Sunday and we get to see more of the raptors.

Hope you enjoyed, PLEASE REVIEW, and see you all next time!