Author's note: And here we are! The last part, which was a lot of fun to work on, and I hope you'll find entertaining :) Thank you so much for sticking around and for your incredible support! See ya on the flip side!

It was funny, really, how much had changed. And how little, too.

Claire roused slowly to the awareness to Owen's body enveloped around hers. One of his hands was cupped around her breast, playing lazily with her nipple while he pressed slow, lazy kissed to her neck. Still half asleep, she purred in appreciation, stretching to accommodate his touch, the memories of the previous night flooding her with soft, pulsing glow. Owen laughed softly, the sound rumbling low in his chest and reverberating through her, eliciting another sound of approval.

"Morning," Owen breathed out against her skin, his eager hand slipping from her breast and skimming down her stomach, Claire's breath catching when he reached the sensitive spot between her thighs.

"Owen, I can't, I have to…"

She was going to be late, and she was never late. Certainly not because of a—

He eased one finger in, and then another, and Claire lost the train of her thought, as well as the ability to think altogether, her very sanity hanging by a thread. She made another attempt to pull away from him, albeit a weak one, because she was pathologically punctual, and if she didn't make it on time… Her teeth dug into her lip to hold back a moan when he added a third digit, his thumb stroking her clit in slow circles while he was sucking gently on her earlobe. She rolled over, reaching out to grab his face and bring their lips together, finding it awfully unfair that he had access to her and she didn't—

"Do I have your attention now?" Owen murmured between the pecks before abandoning her mouth in favour of a more deliberate quest down her body, peppering his way along her neck and down her chest with feather-light kisses.

It was barely past dawn, the room still coloured in soft shades of blue, but the air was already thick and heavy, making her feel like she was floating in the water.

Claire let out a shaky exhale when his lips closed around her breast, biting her flesh – light enough to leave a mark but not to hurt. Her eyes dropped shut with a stuttered sigh when he nuzzled his forehead into her belly before pushing her legs apart. And then his mouth replaced his hand, teasing and kissing and caressing, swirls of pleasure sparkling in her core and spreading to the tips of her toes and the top of her head.

Her breath hitched, her fingers gripped his hair, nails scraping over his scalp. More, she thought, grabbing on to the headboard with another hand and allowing the reality to slip away at last, surrendering to his mercy, falling and flying, vanishing in the blissful release, her body contracting, cracked wide open.

Chuckling, he pressed a kiss to her inner thigh, and she shuddered at the sharp prickly feel of his stubble scratching across her sensitive skin, his breath on her tender folds sending another wave of aftershocks through her. And how could too much be not enough, she wondered absently. Her hips rose in half-demand, half-invitation, each of her breaths coming out as a soft moan, and Owen's hand slipped under her knee, lifting it and plunging into her. She took him deep on a single thrust, eyes wide, pupils blows, and his mouth crashed against hers, swallowing another outcry of delight.

She could taste herself on him, feel the rapid staccato of his heartbeat and the throbbing sensation inside her until she couldn't tell where she ended and he began.

After a few crazy collisions, he slowed down, sliding in and out of her in steady strokes, their hips meeting rock for lazy rock. One hand tangled in her hair, another pressing her knee to his ribs, Owen groaned into her neck, arching into her when Claire's nails dug into his back, smearing pain into pleasure. Skin flushed and slick with sweat, she dragged her teeth against his shoulder, quivering and clenching around him, another climax building up fast, making her breath short and ragged, her belly tight. Her body tensed in a last attempt to hold on to balancing over the abyss for a little while longer, melting into him, Owen's hands on her skin the only thing keeping her from dissolving completely.

He turned her face to his, captured her lips with his mouth, both anchored in her and lost in the sheer glee of scattered sensations ricocheting through his body. It didn't take Claire long to shatter around him, quaking beneath him and coming undone, hot and sticky all around him, and he was following her, up and through, and into the sweet oblivion, her name on his lips a curse and a plea.

He chuffed against her neck, trying to get the words to work again, but what came out was a grunt of satisfaction. Claire giggled, the sound burning into him, holding him like a gravitational pull. He shifted to take some weight off of her, propping himself on the elbow over her to kiss her again, slowly and sweetly, pouring everything he couldn't say into it and praying she felt it.

"I'm not going to be able to walk for a week," she said with a chuckle when he stretched beside her, still half draped over her body, their skins stick with sweat, his hands running up and down her sternum, circling around her breasts, tracing her ribs like he needed to make sure she was really there.

Owen's eyebrow cocked curiously, his lips curling in a contemplative grin. "Mm, well, in that case we could stay here and… No, what I have in mind is not gonna make it better."

She puffed a breath into his chest, sleepy and drowsy, and not at all eager to move on with her day. "I need a shower," she sighed with a grimace after a bit.

His fingers brushed her hair back from her cheek as he studied her in the soft morning light, taking note of the lines of her face, the golden specs gleaming in her eyes, the sprinkling of freckles on her nose. "Yeah… You're gonna need help with that."

She looked up. "Why? Is it not working?"

Owen's grin widened. "Oh, it's working! But it's more of a two-person activity."

"Since when?" Claire hummed, curious.

He caught her hand, pressed his lips to her fingertips. "Since we haven't done it together in way too long." His voice low, his expression mock solemn, and she rolled her eyes, and wondered if she could take a day off. Or two. Or three.

"You're impossible, you know that?" Claire mumbled, failing to sound as stern as she intended.

Owen waggled his brows at her. "I've heard it's one of my best traits."

xoox

It didn't work out quite as planned. The shower cubicle was too small to fit them both, what with Owen's massive form filling nearly all of it and leaving her plastered against one of the walls. In the end, Claire let him go first, choosing to take a closer look at the bungalow in the meantime. His shirt draped over her frame, she wandered into the living room, taking notice of everything she didn't bother paying attention to yesterday.

It was small, but neat and tidy. A row of books on the shelf by the couch, some magazines on the coffee table. His TV was on the older side, but there was a PlayStation hooked to it. Claire spotted a console sticking from between two couch cushions. Nothing too personal, save for the fishing rods propped against the wall near the door, but then again, he hadn't been around that long, she figured. The whole place smelled of old wood and lemon furniture polish, dust and forest, the floorboards warm beneath her bare feet – it reminded her of an old log cabin where her family used to spend two weeks every summer when Claire was little.

She trailed her fingertips along the spines of the books, reading the titles as the water started in the small bathroom tucked behind the kitchen, and the smile her lips stretched into all but split her face in half.

When Claire emerged from the bedroom after taking her turn in the shower, feeling and looking more like herself, Owen was fumbling with the coffee maker sitting on the counter. Wearing nothing but loose jeans that were riding low on his hips, he was whistling something under his breath, cheerful and completely off-key. She paused in the doorway and allowed her gaze to take in the taut muscles of his back, moving with his every breath he took and every slightest move he made, rolling under the tan skin and running in defined lines toward his narrow waist and two dimples on his lower back.

Her lips tugged up at the corners completely on the will of their own. If nothing else, she did know how to appreciate a nice view.

He was indeed wider in the shoulders, stronger in every possible way, and his hair was not sandy-blond as she remembered, darkened by time, but his laugh sounded the same, and when he was looking at her, it was still making her weak in the knees. Which was ridiculous on just about every level because she truly through she'd long outgrown those sentiments, and yet here she was, threading on thin ice because every step felt like it needed to be thought through, but it still was worth not turning back. And the barbwire he wore around his heart? She probably should've recognized it at first sight. After all, she was wrapped in it head to toe.

Her nose twitched as the bitter scent of fresh coffee filled his nook of a kitchen, wafting through the air.

As if on cue, Owen looked over his shoulder and flashed a bright smile at her, not oblivious to the fact that she was practically eating him up with her eyes. "See anything you like?"

"Smell something I like," she countered, unfazed, reaching for his coffee mug and taking a small sip. "Mm, that's better."

"What?" He asked innocently. "Feeling a little tired?"

Struggling to keep a straight face, Claire nudged him with her elbow and shook her head. Another sip of coffee and a familiar, pleasant warmth started to spread over her body, kicking the life back into her, setting her gears in motion again. Tired was a major understatement – Claire couldn't help but feel like her very soul had run a marathon and needed to catch a breath. If nothing else, her eyes felt like someone used them as punching bags, and she nearly fell asleep under the spray of hot water not five minutes ago.

And then there was Owen, standing in front of her in all of his shirtless glory and with a shit-eating grin plastered on his face, and all she could think of was maybe throwing her caution out the window and tracing every line of his body all over again, learning him anew, kissing him senseless until they were both breathless and their lips bruised.

Here, take my heart. It's weathered and tired, and more than a little timid, but still fully functional most of the time. Kiss me the way you used to because I don't want to remember anything else. And for the love of god, please don't ever let me go.

It frightened her… no, scratch that. It terrified her to the bones how easily she slipped right back and accepted the idea of being with him, and how her body responded to his every touch and every kiss, and everything in between like it knew nothing else. He was not supposed to have that effect on her still, his easy smile was not allowed to turn her into a puddle of goo at his feet. It felt unfair that the walls she'd spent years building around herself collapsed so easily, and her first instinct was, of course, to fight back against this kind of blatant betrayal. But her body felt sore in the right places for all the good reasons, and hell if Claire didn't want to call in sick and not leave this house until the Owen-Grady-shaped hole he'd left behind closed up completely.

Meanwhile, Owen leaned against the wood counter, regarding her with a great deal of fondness. She was wearing her yesterday's clothes, complete with the bloodstained pants, her hair was a mess, and she looked like hell, and yet he wore an expression of a boy who found his dream present under a Christmas tree. Frankly, she'd lie to herself if she didn't admit that it made her stomach flutter more than just a little, the tiny wrinkles in the corners of his eyes making her think of rays of sunshine, lighting her up from the inside.

"You hungry?" He asked.

Claire shook her head and bit into her bottom lip, bracing herself for the inevitable.

"Look, Owen, just because we…" She cleared her throat. "Just because some things changed doesn't mean that everything between us is magically fixed."

He took the mug from her hands and put it on the counter before drawing her toward him. "Did you get that idea in the shower?" One hand on her hip, he smoothed down her hair with another one, his index finger trailing along her cheekbone. "'Cause if the answer's yes, you're not showering alone for as long as I live."

And there it was, the why and the how, the endless list of reasons that led them to this moment in time, all hiding in the corners of his smile and lurking behind his blue eyes. It felt like she started falling a decade and half ago, and never stopped since, and that, too, was frightening in its own way. Dreams crashed and wings broken and wars lost and smooth edged sharpened into blades – a crazy mix of everything that they grew up into.

"I'm serious," Claire pointed out with reproach, knowing that if she gave in now, he'd be tearing down her carefully constructed life until there was nothing left of it, and also knowing she wouldn't try to stop him. Damn it, she was already halfway there…

Owen's smile slipped and he let out a long breath through his nose. "I know." He glanced past her, his hand slipping down to curl around the back of her neck, fingers playing absently with her soft curls, the warmth of his touch spreading through her. His gaze fastened on hers again. "I get it, okay?" His voice dropped. "It's a lot, and… We can talk, we can—I don't know, take it slow. Take it at a snail's pace if you want, but let's do it now, and not in 16 years."

Her hand crept up his chest, splayed on his skin. There were so many things that could go wrong again, and as much as Claire didn't want to think about them, she had already gone through all possible what-ifs and maybes – it was her mode operation, if not survival. Thinking a hundred steps ahead instead of ten, playing it safe instead of taking risks. The last time she allowed herself to slip, she ended up dreaming of getting run over by a train, and that was the kind of lesson that stuck.

Yet, he was right here with her, warm and solid, and probably just as scared, if Claire knew him all. And his heart was thumping steadily under her palm, giving her every promise in the word without Owen's having to so much as open his mouth, her brain tuning into a mush from breathing him, and she knew for a fact that she'd be taking that leap, her arms spread wide open to the wind. The question here was whether or not she'd remember to grab a parachute this time, or if she'd trust him to be her safety net, praying he'd catch her when she landed.

"Sure," she nodded, allowing herself to relax, and his easy, in uncertain smile was back again, a firm wall of his muscles coiling around her, attuned to the shift in Claire's mood.

"Whatever you want," Owen promised, tilting her face up and kissing her quickly, his thumb stroking the line of her jaw. "Now, d'you mind giving me a ride? My car's still at the paddock."

His words took a moment to sink in, and then her eyes widened as the realization clicked. "You said you'd be back."

His eyebrows knitted together comically. "What?"

"Yesterday, before we left, you said you'd be back soon, and you haven't…"

She closed her eyes slowly, and Owen let out a hearty laugh. "Come on, Claire. No one seriously expected me to come back any more than I thought I would."

Claire pressed a hand to her mouth and dropped her forehead on his shoulder. "Oh, god," she groaned.

"I'm afraid, your impeccable reputation is irrevocably ruined, Ms. Dearing," Owen snorted, kissing the top of her head.

"Where did you learn those words?" She scoffed, pulling back and desperately trying to ignore her burning cheeks, which certainly didn't escape his attention.

"My girlfriend's a fan of fancy vocabulary," he shook his head, coaxing another smile out of her. "There it is. So, about that ride…" His hands traveled up and down her sides, digging into her flesh through the blouse that felt simultaneously too thin and too in-the-way under his touch. "Or, alternatively, we could-"

Claire rolled her eyes. "Honestly, Owen…"

"What? We have many, many years of catching up to do!" He protested defensively when she managed to slip out of his grasp.

"And you want to do it in two days?" She hummed, picking up her purse from the couch. Her phone was nearly dead and practically exploding with several dozens of messages and emails that undoubtedly required her immediate attention.

"Can't blame a guy for trying," he called after her when she told him to get dressed and meet her outside.

Claire easily navigated the twists and turns in the back roads, following Owen's directions back to the paddock. The route they'd taken yesterday no longer seemed confusing at all now that she was actually paying attention where they were going.

In the passenger seat beside her, Owen looked like a Cheshire Cat, grinning at her for all he was worth whenever she would chance a glance at him, her own mouth tugging upward at the corners at the sight of such undisclosed glee on his face. It was a miracle he didn't set the car on fire, she thought not without affection. If she didn't know for a fact that he had about as much sleep as she did, which wasn't a lot, she would've never guessed, and god, how unfair was that?

Except nothing was fair, and yet everything was, and she wouldn't choose to be anywhere else, not for anything in the world.

"Do I need a tetanus shot?" She asked him, pulling up to one of the low structures scattered around the paddock, half hoping no one would see them, and half not caring.

Owen's eyes darted toward the blood stain near the hem if her pants. "If your skin starts tuning gray and scaly in a few days, we'll get you a tracking implant and you'll be fine," he responded seriously, earning an eye-roll and a smack on the shoulder for good measure. He chuckled. "Honestly, you'll be okay. It's barely a scratch."

"You would know."

It was hard not to notice the scars and marks crisscrossing his skin, some pale and almost indistinguishable, others more prominent and raw, rising a swarm of questions in her head she didn't know how to ask. Owen wore them as badges of honour, like they were something that proved a life well lived, a life full of adventures where one day was never like the one before it, each of them holding a story, a memory. She traced them with her fingertips, grateful to have him safe and if a little worn at the edges here with her again, but also wistful, unable to shake off the feeling that she had missed so much that trying to catch up would feel like nothing but a race against time, the depth of everything she didn't know about him making her think of bottomless ocean.

Her own markings were less obvious – they showed themselves in never calling first, in needing to have an upper hand in every situation, in always ending relationships before she got too attached, in planning everything so far ahead it felt like she'd already lived through every possible experience before they even started. The fear of being too much or not enough often left her too exhausted to even try. Undoubtedly, Owen had his fair share of invisible scars as well, the ones that would manifest when she least expected them to.

All things considered, they were in for one hell of a ride…

Claire slumped against the back of her seat and turned off the engine. It was pretty early still, the commotion she was used to not in full swing yet. She could still hear the voices of the other people, hollering to one another over the sound of the waves crashing against the cliffs nearby. While in the park the air smelled like palm trees and tropical flowers, here it was more about the breeze and salt seawater hanging in the air like fine mist. That might be why Owen's hair and his clothes smelled like the surf, she mused, resisting the urge to bury her nose in his skin again.

He reached for her hand, his fingers running along the length of hers, and she looked away from the window and at him again, feeling the tense line of her shoulders relax. This place was wild and unforgiving, and who would they be in the end if they didn't learn to hold on to what mattered the most?

He leaned in to brush his lips to hers, his hand curled around her jaw, and she grabbed his face, framing it with her palms, deepening the kiss. He smelled like soap, his hair still damp from the shower, curling at the ends and his stubble scratchy against her hands, and all she could think of was that nothing in her life ever felt this much like finally.

xoox

"What's with the face?" Zara asked, not bothering to mask her curiosity.

"Hm?" Claire looked up from the purchase forms she was signing.

"You look like…" Zara's lips stretched into a wider smile. "Who is he? Spill!"

Well, that might take a while, Claire thought, shaking her head and reaching for another stack of papers, careful not to miss anything. Also, trying to explain what was going on with her might need some serious concentration, perhaps – something she was seemingly incapable of lately.

Claire Dearing who worked nights and weekends and was known for her scrupulous attention to detail couldn't focus on something for longer than 10 minutes. Claire Dearing who valued professionalism above everything else kept finding herself humming something under her breath. Claire Dearing who had a taste for fine things in life, like Jacuzzis and central cooling system, was counting the minutes till she could get back to a small, crammed bungalow in the middle of the island.

If someone told her a few months ago she would gladly look past the swarms of mosquitoes and tepid water in the shower without even taking them into account, she would tell them they were insane. Now, she would zip past bewildered Zara at 6PM on the dot, flying down to the parking lot like her very life depended on it, and maybe in a way it did, she was starting to suspect. Blood flowing and heart racing, she would forego her own spacious suite for another night in a small cabin with a man who was making her feel alive again.

They talked, too. Half a lifetime was a lot to cover when it came to getting acquainted with one another again. She told him about Karen and Scott and the boys, their faces not registering with Owen, but the names sounded vaguely familiar, if a little faded, and it was like a thin string connecting them both to something they shared that started to unravel everything else. His head resting on Claire's stomach and her hand threading slowly through his hair damp with sweat, they would share bits and pieces of their lives, threading carefully through something that felt like uncharted waters, mapping out the way to one another.

"Two nephews, huh?" Owen asked, kissing along her sternum, his fingers running slow circles around her hipbone and up her side, as if mesmerized by the feeling of her skin, smooth and silky.

"They think I'm a figment of their imagination," she grimaced a little, remembering all the missed birthdays and holidays, the money she sent in lieu of visits and real presents. Not the proudest moment of her life.

He let out a short laugh. "Fun Aunt Claire." His hand moved to her hip, a line of goosebumps springing on her heated skin. "You know, I wanted to find you," Owen said after a few moments, his arms flexing around her. He rubbed his bearded cheek on her soft belly. "After a while, when I came back to the States. Five, maybe six years later."

Claire paused. Even the air around them felt electrified somehow.

"Why didn't you?" She asked softly when he didn't add anything else.

He inhaled deeply and then let it out slowly, deflating around her. "Come on, Claire. You were a golden girl with a future and I was a delinquent with questionable life choices." The words came out as a whoosh of breath that washed over her skin. "If anything, I thought I was doing you a solid one by staying the hell away from you."

"This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard," she told him after a few moments, and Owen all but chocked on his snort, practically hearing her roll her eyes.

He rolled over, taking his weight off of her and then kissed each peak of her breasts, making her giggle before scooting up until their faces were on the save level, her eyes glinting in the dark. He brushed her fizzy bangs from her forehead, tracing his fingertips over her brow and along the delicate lines of her face, as if trying to memorize her with his hands as well as his eyes, reading her like she was written in Braille.

"Yeah, well, I'm a work in progress," he admitted, his mouth curling ever so slightly, mirroring her own ghost of a smile.

His confession wasn't sitting quite right with her, a storm of emotions taking over the logic. She was mad at him for a very long time, and the chances were, if he showed up out of the blue while she was still riding through the anger and loss, she'd possibly throw something at his head. Still, it was hard not to think of everything that could have been but never was, and her mind was racing, trying to remember her 20-something self and the choices she would've made, unable to place either of them in the picture the way they'd fit.

She was lost and hurt and confused, wondering if her scars would ever stop throbbing at the mere thought of him. But one thing he was wrong about – she was not better off without him, never had been, and if the fact that they ended up here, in that moment, sprawled on his bed, wrapped in humid darkness and threading through their memories like they were scared of missing something vital was not a proof of that, she didn't know what was.

"Aren't we all?" Claire murmured, pulling him over her, her fingers tangled in his hair, her eyelids heavy and her mind fuzzy, too wired to sleep and too exhausted to stay awake, and it was at the times like this that his presence was the only thing that mattered.

He missed her hair, Owen informed her, a golden waterfall she chopped off during her second year in college because she didn't think braids were professional enough. That, and because she remembered all too clearly the way it would brush over his chest when she would move above him in his tiny bedroom in his father's house on long, hot afternoons, their eyes locked together, and cutting it almost felt like cutting this memory out of her mind, too.

He'd told her about the NAVY. About the sand storms that made him wash the sand out of every crevice of his body for weeks on end, about the drills in the freezing rain and that scar on his back left by a barbwire during one of them. About how half the time he didn't believe he'd live to celebrate another birthday. About the training and the tours, and the InGen's offer he thought was a joke at first.

"Did you believe them?" He asked her, shaking his head, his whole body wrapped around her. It was never not hot, and he was like a furnace, but every time he'd try to pull away, Claire would draw him closer still, breathing him, reveling in every smallest detail – the way he fir around her, the beating of his heart, the vibration of his voice that she felt before she heard it.

And after a particularly nasty nightmare that seized him one night, leaving him gasping for air and covered in a film of sweat, he also admitted that the bungalow was indeed a deal breaker – the crowds were setting off his inner alarms and triggering his PTSD, courtesy of the second tour that left him more than a little shaken, helpfully supplying him with blood-infused dreams.

He went back to school eventually too, changing his initial major from mechanical engineering to marine biology, which ultimately was what secured him a spot in the training program in the NAVY, and which led to an offer from InGen after a groundbreaking success – the technical terms bouncing off of her, stripped off their meaning. Cause and effect, Claire mused, trying not to get overwhelmed by the avalanche of small happenstances that needed to fall into place in this particular pattern for the two of them to meet again.

"I still have that photo of you," Owen murmured into her skin, a smile in his voice. "From… what was it? A Sunday market?"

"State Fair?" She suggested, trying to remember the day he was talking about, the memories of it so faint and frail she feared they would turn into dust if she tried to pull them up to the surface once again.

"That's the one." His hand found hers, lacing their fingers together.

He showed it to her later, worn and faded from sitting in his wallets and pockets, and going through several high-speed washing cycles, he admitted with a sheepish chuckle. She was not looking at the camera, her profile standing in sharp contrast against the early evening sky and her hair falling down almost to her waist, stirred by the hot wind. Claire couldn't recall posing for it, didn't even remember either one of the bringing a camera with them at all, and yet here it was, a proof that a part of her life she'd spent years trying to erase from her mind was, indeed, very real.

She traced her fingertips to the cracks running across the old photo paper, feeling his gaze on her, watching a storm of emotions washing over her face. "I can't believe you kept it."

"I can't believe I found the real you again."

Claire shook her head, pulling herself back from the tangled mess of her thoughts. Back in her office, with Zara watching her with puzzled curiosity mixed with amusement. She offered her assistant a small smile, choosing to look past Zara's questions.

"It's nothing," she insisted lightly. "What's on the docket for today?"

xoox

Most of the time, Owen loved his job more than anything in the world. And then there were days when everything was wrong no matter how hard he tried.

Today was one of them.

They were four weeks into the training, and more often than not, the raptors were eager to go along with it. At this point, he was mainly focused on alternating games and snack time to keep them engaged and interested enough to figure out their individual strengths and weaknesses, and to assess their intellectual range in order to adjust the things he had in mind for later. They were growing fast, too, and he knew that soon he wouldn't be able to casually stroll into their cage and merely order them to stay back.

Whatever InGen had in mind, the Velociraptors were no dolphins. Their mental capacity was roughly the same, their memory just as impressive, and more often than not, they were driven by the desire to show off, do as they were told for his praise. At least, at this age. But at the same time, their predator instincts were sharper, and Owen didn't look forward to seeing them kick in fully. While the marine mammals often relied on self-preservation in making decisions, the raptors didn't shy away from attacking the possible 'enemy', which was something he needed to figure out how to turn to his advantage if he was going to make this work.

Right now, however, he was a stone's throw away from tossing the goddamn clicker into the ocean and catching the next ferry off this island. Having one of girls kicking around in foul mood was unfortunate. Having all four of them being irritable and snappy was a nightmare. Granted, he knew it was the heat and not his personal failure. The temperature had been climbing all weak, and today Owen couldn't help but feel like that egg that ended up being fried on the hood of the car. His sweat-soaked shirt was sticking to his back, making him cringe with every move, and the heavy boots he wore for practicality as well as for protection from the four animals that probably wouldn't mind snacking on his toes felt like were leaden, making him drag his feet around the catwalk like he was in shackles. Generally, he appreciated the remote location of the paddock and the lush forest surrounding it, but did no one really consider adding some sort of a roof over the bridges running along the concrete walls? At this rate, he was going to end up with a heat stroke and no time, and probably fall into the cage and be eaten by his charges before anyone even noticed.

He stuffed the clicker into the pocket of his pants and leaned against the railing, his eyes snatching the raptors one by one from the cover of the tall grass and trees as he tried to come up with what he was going to tell Hoskins about the progress they made.

Hoskins came back two weeks ago, and Claire retreated to her own office, no longer having an excuse to stop by – for work reasons, at least. She would still come over now and then though, between the shifts or if he was staying past the work hours, carried away by whatever they were up to here. She was not particularly eager to be too much in the faces of the other handlers, drawing a line at pet names and kissing in public even though Owen knew for a fact that no one cared – she'd become such a fixture even Barry stopped teasing him about the development in their relationship. But he was not going to argue with her about something as trivial and unimportant. After all, he got to take her home every night anyway.

She wouldn't come closer to the raptors again, choosing to observe them from the safe distance, but she did learn to tell them apart, and Owen couldn't help but consider it a small victory.

Which was why he wasn't all that surprised to see her sleek car spring into the clearing in front of the paddock just when he finally decided to maybe give another feeding a go before trying something else today. Except it was the middle of the afternoon, and Owen doubted her schedule allowed for random breaks. Especially with literally everyone involved in his project milling around.

Owen pushed back from the railing and headed toward the stairs, his forehead creased with concern.

"I need you," she breathed out when he met her at the base of the staircase.

He gave her a quick cursory scan, relieved to find her physically unharmed in any way, if a little too stressed to his liking. "Okay," he said slowly now that he was almost certain that no one had died or suffered a fatal injury. "What is it?"

She bit into her lip, the back-and-forth on her face so wonderfully adorable he almost forgot about the six shitty hours of his life he knew he was not getting back.

But before she could even open her mouth, Hoskins sauntered over to him, eyebrows arched at the sight of her. "Is everything okay?" He asked, his gaze darting between her and Owen, giving an extra attention to Claire in the form of a pointed once-over.

She offered him her business smile, and Owen bristled momentarily. He hated when she put her Operations Manager mask on, and the way Hoskins was leering at her wasn't making it any better. He might as well be waving a red cloth in front of a bull.

"We have a small hiccup at the park, Mr. Hoskins," she offered him almost pleasantly, save for the chilly touch to her smile that would make anyone's blood run cold. "Mind if I borrow one of your men for a little while?"

"Sure," he smirked and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his pants. "But not for another two hours, I'm afraid. See, we're also working here."

"I understand," Claire agreed. "But it really is an emergency…"

"I'm sure it is," Hoskins cut her off.

"Come on, Vic," Owen started. The man had an ego the size of an Empire State Building and it wasn't a secret to anyone that knowing that Claire, technically, stood a few steps above him on the corporate ladder rubbed him the wrong way on just about every level. And seeing him flaunt his flimsy power in front of her was making Owen's blood boil. Like it was not enough that he was practically talking to her breasts.

"Get back to work, Grady," Hoskins ordered dismissively before allowing his gaze to travel up and down Claire once again. "I don't care how wide you had to spread your legs to get this job, missy, but it doesn't mean you can just walk around here-"

And then he was suddenly on the ground before his words even registered with Claire, his hand clasped around his jaw, and Owen was towering over him, his mouth set tight and his fingers clenched into fists.

He pointed a finger at Hoskins who seemed to be too dumbfounded to even begin to process what just happened. "Don't you dare talk like that to my wife," he said in a low, dangerous voice, each word landing on another man like a blow.

"I'm not your—" Claire finally gathered her bearings, her eyes wide. "I'm not his wife," she said quickly, then turned to Owen. "Look, forget it…"

It might have felt like everything happened in slow motion, but when she looked around, the time kicked back into its regular pace, and everyone around them stopped whatever they were doing to gape at the scene unfolding before their eyes.

"Come on." Owen jerked his chin, staring toward her car before he pounced on Hoskins once again.

"Was that really necessary?" Claire demanded, staring the engine. She heaved a long sigh, her stomach still churning, as she made a U-turn to get back to the road.

Owen stared out the passenger window, flexing his fingers slowly, curling and uncurling them. His knuckles had already turned red, and he knew they were going to start throbbing soon, but that moment of impact that wiped the sneer off of Hoskins's face and sent him to the ground was worth it.

"He had no business talking to you like that," he muttered, the anger still making him see red.

"I can handle myself," Claire pointed out stiffly.

"Well, the next time I'll hold your purse and you'll do the punching," Owen breathed out.

"No one is going to do any-" She cut off and took a sharp turn. "Hoskins is an asshole, but this kind of behaviour is still unacceptable."

"Okay, forget about him. What is it, Claire?" He finally turned to her. "This is not your booty call face."

She didn't take the bait, the joke falling flat between them, her eyebrow pulled together in concentration. "There's an… issue with one of our new animals."

Owen's interest piqued. "New animals? You just went and made a new dinosaur?"

She shot him a dirty look. "Where do you think your raptors came from, Owen? Real Velociraptor eggs from 65 million years ago?" She shook her head, steering the car toward the grey walls of another paddock rising above the treetops. "Nothing here is real."

He scrubbed a hand over his face. "Would it kill you to let me believe otherwise?" The question was not addressed to anyone in particular. "So, what's the problem?" He asked when she parked the car in the shade of the trees and they stepped out of the air-conditioned bubble into the humid afternoon that wrapped around them like a blanket.

"We keep losing the thermal signature," Claire explained as she started toward the stairs leading toward the observatory. "This paddock is very much like the one where your keep your raptors, and I know you oversaw its construction." Her high heels clacked on the metal stairs. "I need to know if the chip is malfunctioning or if the asset—the animal actually found a way to sneak in and out of the cage."

So this was what the big secret was about, Owen thought, looking around. All the extra hours and long meetings, the questions she didn't give him any answers to when he asked, saying instead she was not yet at liberty to discuss it. He thought it was about the remodeling of the Aqua Park, truth be told.

"What's this thing made of?" He asked when she swiped her card through the reader near the door and they once again found themselves in the comfort of the room equipped with cooling system.

Claire hesitated. "I know that the base genome is the T-Rex," she responded almost uncertainly. He quirked his eyebrow at her. "My clearance level doesn't allow to know the rest," she admitted not without a hint of irritation in her voice, although he wasn't sure it was aimed at him or the system.

"Okay, so…" Owen nodded a quick hello to the tech sitting in the corner and then walked over the floor-to-ceiling reinforced glass and peered outside, trying to catch a movement in the trees before him.

"I talked to the ACU and they assured me that the paddock was safe," she stopped beside him, and from this close, Owen caught a whiff of her perfume mixed with her sunscreen lotion she couldn't possibly forego with that pale skin of hers even if she tended to spend most of her time indoors. With the tech being there, there was no way she would allow him to do anything, but Owen's hand brushed lightly against hers, and for a brief second her features relaxed, a small smile crossing her face when she turned to him, grateful for the reassurance. "But I have a presentation in two days," she added, "and one of the handlers nearly got dragged inside during the feeding, and I'm currently facing the possibility of either having to hire someone new, or maybe even dealing with a lawsuit."

"What can I do?"

Claire's eyes fixed on something behind the glass even though Owen couldn't see anything in there, try as he might. "I need a second opinion." She said after a few moments. "We can reinforce the paddock, build the walls up higher. Or we need to replace the tracking implant. But I need to know what the problem is."

Owen's gaze flickered toward the tech before he curled his pinky finger around hers, tugging at it slightly until her smile was back, or whatever passed for it when she was obviously under more pressure than he ever imagined was possible. (And here he thought he was having a problem, ha!) "Piece of cake," he promised her with a wink, still not quite over the earlier confrontation with Hoskins, but happy to have his attention switched to something else. Getting to spend some extra time with her was an added bonus. "What's the plan?"

The plan was simple enough.

The animal had already been sedated and the vet expected her to remain passed out for another hour. In the meantime, Owen and a couple of members of ACU were to go into the paddock and check it for breaches or system malfunctions while the vet examined the animal to make sure she didn't lose the tracker. It bothered Claire on more than one level that the implant reading was still coming from the paddock even when the thermal signature would go. It wasn't uncommon for the animals to short-circuit each other's implants, but it was one thing when they were talking about mellow herbivores, and something else altogether when something that was making Claire's blood run cold was involved.

The Indominus Rex.

The name still sounded like a joke to her, but no one asked her to weigh in on it, and she never did. She – Henry Wu said it was a she – was still young, only half the size of what they expected her to be in a few months, but even so, she was as big as an elephant already, plus claws and teeth, and those unblinking eyes. Just thinking about sending anyone in there made Claire shiver. But what choice did she have?

Four people in total.

She watched them walk in through a small door under the observatory – the main gate was only to be opened if there was a need to transfer the I-Rex somewhere else. Two armed men, Owen, and a guy with a vet bag. She hated the idea of having him here, her heart tripping over itself when she imagined two-foot tall raptors playfully cutting his neck open. Something that was practically a T-Rex, even pumped with tranquilizers, was something she didn't want him anywhere near to.

Fifteen minutes, at most, that was what Owen told her. It was meant to leave them all plenty of time to get out before the I-Rex started to wake up. Claire was counting seconds in her head.

When the forest stirred before her eyes, she thought it was the wind at first. It wasn't until the long snout peeked from between the trees, the nostrils flaring as she sniffed the air, that the realization hit her, and her heart dropped.

The men noticed her a few seconds after Claire did, in disadvantage on the ground.

She jumped forward, banging her palms against the glass and yelling at them to run, knowing they couldn't hear her. The observation rooms were designed soundproof – no one wanted a dangerous animal spooked by a shrieking child. Her warning was unnecessary, though – it took them all not more than two seconds to see what they were dealing with. Two seconds too long – the I-Rex's teeth closed around the MCU man before he could so much as lift his rifle, his blood spraying across the ground in a wide arc.

How could she still be awake? There should be enough drugs in her system to kill something her size, and yet—

Claire rushed toward the tech and yanked the earpiece off of his head. "Get out of there, now!" She barked into it, hoping at least one of them heard her. Her phone slipped out of her sweaty palm and landed on the concrete floor at her feet, its screen shattered. If they responded, she didn't hear a word through the blood rush in her ears. She grabbed the tech's desk and barked at him, "Open the door!"

He blinked at her, socked, before springing into action, screaming something into his walkie-talkie and pushing the buttons on the console.

When Claire turned toward the window again, the man that was attacked was lying on the ground in a shapeless heap that was barely recognizable as a human, twisted and broken in all the wrong places; there was blood on the gravel around him, and Owen and the other two guys were running toward the door they came in through.

She pressed her hands to the glass, feeling helpless and useless and praying to all gods to keep him safe. The thirty feet separating them from the walls would be nothing in different circumstance, but then the I-Rex leaped out of hiding, her arm with razor-sharp claws reaching for her prey. She grazed the back of the vet – a young man that only started working here two months ago – and he tripped over his own feet and fell down.

"Go, damn it. Go," Claire pleaded under her breath. But Owen whirled around, his mouth opening and closing in the yell she couldn't hear. He yanked the vet to his feet and propelled him forward… before being thrown aside. "No. God, no…"

Hitting the wall, he collapsed down, but when the I-Rex's teeth were mere inches away from him, he pushed away from the ground and rolled between her legs, scrambling up and starting to the exit again. The I-Rex roared, making the whole paddock tremble, her eyes blazing with such raw fury it almost hurt to look, impossible to believe she was real. Swift for her size, she span around, but the men were out of Claire's line of sight by now, and she rushed toward the door, leaving the tech to gape at whatever the hell was going in the cage.

She burst out of the observatory and flew down a flight of stairs, nearly twisting her ankle on the grated surface beneath her feet and barreling into the railing on the landing to see the bared teeth disappear behind the closing door that was too small for her to fit through and Owen's fingers frantically pushing the buttons on the control panel on the wall before he slid down to the ground and leaned his back against the concrete. There was a cut on his forehead, bleeding pretty badly, and she didn't want to even think of what being tossed around felt like, but he was alive, and that alone left Claire weak in her knees.

The injured and horrified vet had his hand draped over the MCU man's neck as they stared at the steel panel that cut the raging monster from them, and behind it, the I-Rex was roaring in anger.

When Owen saw her standing above him, her hands gripping the metal railing with enough force to bend it, he smiled and gave her a weak wave.

xoox

He was watching the sun sink into the sea form the top of the bleachers running around the Mosasaurus's pool, his face coloured in every share of gold, when she finally found him a few hours later. Below them, the pool looked almost black, the pale form of the prehistoric monster moving below the surface nothing but a ghostly shadow.

The cut on Owen's forehead had been patched up, two butterfly Band-Aids holding it closed. His clothes were still covered in dust from rolling on the ground, but otherwise he looked his usual self, and the tight knot in her stomach finally eased, allowing Claire to start breathing deeply again.

"Are you okay?" She asked, taking a sit next to him.

Owen nodded and rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah. I mean, considering."

I'm sorry, she wanted to say, but the words tasted foul in her mouth, choking her, a hot lump lodged in her throat.

"I talked to Simon," she breathed out instead, staring straight ahead. "They're not going to put a plug on this project." There was need to look at him to know that his jaw tightened, a vein popping out on his neck.

"You're shitting me now, right?" He muttered, disbelieving.

"Owen…"

He was buzzing with nervous energy now, and she knew that if he had it in him, he'd probably leap into the air upon hearing the news. "She's psychotic, Claire! She pretended to be asleep because she was hunting. That man that died in her paddock today? He's not gonna be the last one." He shook his head, disgusted.

Claire opened her mouth to protest, to point out that she couldn't be pretending because she was just an animal, and then promptly clamped it shut because there was nothing just in the place. Everything here came with a price, and sometimes the price was human life.

"What do you want me to do?" She sighed, rubbing her eyes. "I can scream my head off, but I have no say in this, and trust me, I'm far from irreplaceable." This was actually something she considered. Maybe not seriously, maybe not for real yet, but the truth was there was no guarantee that whoever came next would do more. "I made my opinion perfectly clear. They politely ignored it."

"They can't keep her…" He pursed his lips together. "I can't believe Simon Masrani doesn't see this."

"He has no say in it, either," she admitted. "All decisions are made by the Board of Directors, and they weren't there today. They didn't see…" She swallowed. "They didn't see anyone die. All they know is what had been invested in this project and the revenue planned for when she's open for public."

"So you're gonna do nothing?"

"We will reinforce the paddock, minimize human contact and…" Claire paused. "If there was anything I could do, I would. I saw you almost die today." Her voice dropped and she looked down at her hands in her lap, feeling the panic rise in her chest again, making her heart clench. She had spent the last three hours on the phone with Simon and then several other members of the Board, not allowing herself to think yet of what she'd witnessed this afternoon, but it was only a matter of time before it caught up with her, and the idea terrified her. "I thought you…"

A sharp inhale, and Owen reached for her hand, weaving his fingers through hers and squeezing them when she didn't pull out of his grasp. Claire looked up, meeting his eyes in the purple dusk mixed with the light of the underwater lamps dotting the bottom of the pool. She ran her thumb over his bruised knuckles, wondering if the visible injuries were all he walked away from Paddock 11 with.

She didn't even realize how badly she was still shaking until his steady hand cred around hers, and once again, she found herself weak with relief that it wasn't Owen who never made it out of that cage alive, that someone else was a casualty, and what kind of monster thought that?

"Claire?" The sound of his voice pulled her back to here and now. "Are we okay?"

"Why wouldn't we be?" She blinked, feeling like she'd missed something, trying to rewind their conversation in her head, but still coming up empty.

"Because you freaked out," he winced. "Earlier. What I called you my wife."

"I did not… freak out," she protested.

"Yes, you did. You should've seen your face." A not so subtle shadow of hurt passed over his features, and even in semi-darkness it was impossible to miss. "I didn't mean it like… it wasn't like that, I just…"

"I didn't freak out," Claire pressed. "It caught me off-guard, is all." She let out a soft breath. "It took me a very long time to stop thinking of you that way, and then all this…" Her voice trailed off, swallowed by the hungry cries of seagulls circling over the trees near the beach, carried over by the wind. Claire tucked a strand of hair around her ear. "We're good, I think. I want us to be," she admitted. "It's just… It's not that I don't trust you, Owen."

Owen nodded. "But?"

"But I don't trust you not to hurt me again," she confessed, looking down at the pool.

"Noted," he cleared his throat. "The feeling's quite mutual." The corner of his mouth curled up humorlessly.

Claire sighed. "I'm not good at this."

"What, exactly? I can name at least 15 things off the top of my head that you're spectacular at," he joked, but his heart wasn't in it. She smiled anyway, probably needing it as much as he did. "D'you think it would've worked out, you know, between us if maybe something went differently or if we tried harder?"

Now that was a heavy one. God knew, she'd spent years, trying to figure that out. "I think… I think that sometimes you meet the right person at the wrong time," Claire said carefully after a pause. "And you need to be brave enough to give it a second chance when the right time comes." She grimaced a little, embarrassed by how it came out – like a Hallmark card message. "I don't want to get married again," she blurted out next before he responded. "Not to you, not to anyone. Thought I'd make that clear."

"Noted." Another nod. "I can live with that."

She bit her lip. "I don't know what you want, Owen, and I don't know if I can give it to you, but I have a spare toothbrush in your bathroom, and I found a pair of your pants in my hamper this morning." The laugh that bubbled up in his chest and scattered over the surface of the water, echoing in the distance nearly sent her soaring into the night sky. "And in my book, it's a pretty solid start."

Owen's hand cupped his cheek, tilting her face up, and he captured her lips with his. "Sounds fine to me."

"So, what now?" She asked, resting her chin on his shoulder.

He wrapped his arm around her, pressing a kiss to her temple, delighted and relieved and every kind of ecstatic for all the reasons he hadn't allowed himself to go into ever since they got back together. "I say we stick together," he suggested. Provided I still have my job tomorrow, he added mentally, but chose to keep it to himself for the time being. "And we can start that by going back to my place and grilling a couple of burgers. All that running for my life... I'm starving."

Claire chuckled, her face turned into his chest. "Lead the way, Mr. Grady. I'm ravenous."

The end

A/N: Well, that was fun! Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did :)) And please don't leave without a review!