When Alan hung up the phone, his vision swam. The news that Samantha had sprung on him had been earth shattering, her accusations world tilting.
He had a son.
He, Alan Grant, had a son. A child of his own. Who was fully grown, and after having been raised by Samantha Grady probably hated his guts.
Owen Grady was his son. Owen Grady, who'd attended one of his lectures, years ago, biking two towns over to come see him. He'd had lunch with him and had been impressed by him, but had never even suspected. His son worked with velociraptors. His son had gone back to Isla Nublar for his velociraptors.
"Oh God. Oh God."
Alan moved to sit with his head between his knees, feeling even more overcome than he did upon seeing his first living dinosaur. His world had just been tilted on its end and he didn't know what to do.
"Help," he realized. "I need help."
He picked up the phone again, poised to call Ellie, the one person who had always been there for him without fail. Even after their relationship failed, they'd remained close friends. She would be there for him now, he knew, but at the last minute he stopped.
Ellie would be out of her depth here. Her children weren't even teens yet and they'd grown up their whole lives with her, and her husband both together. They loved her, there was no doubt of that. No, as much as it grated on him, there was someone better to call for this, Alan knew. He knew someone whose children were full grown and frequently at odds with him.
"Dr. Grant!" Malcolm greeted him entirely too cheerfully for any situation, let alone one that was happening on a day involving living dinosaurs in any way shape or form. "Just the man I wanted to talk to. Can you believe the security footage they just released? With the raptors attacking the Indominous to defend those humans? In some ways, raptors are the quintessence of chaos –"
"Malcolm, I need help."
Malcolm instantly shut up and was quiet for a good few seconds. Then. "Tell me you're not down on Isla Nublar."
"No, I'm not. Yet. Malcolm, I have a son."
"You have a what?" Malcolm sounded floored.
"I have a son. Owen Grady is my son. I just found out and I don't know what to do."
"Whoa, wait, that crazy velociraptor wrangler is your son? You have a son? And you just found out? Whoa, whoa, whoa, Grant. Alright. Alright, listen to me."
"I'm listening. I'm listening. Tell me, what the hell am I supposed to do?"
"Ok, you're going to need to break this down. This isn't something you can approach all at once."
That made sense. That helped. Breaking the process to solving this down, like the steps of an excavation. You didn't just grab a shovel and start wrecklessly digging up a paleontological site. You made preparations, marked off sections, then removed the dirt layer by layer.
"Ok. What do I do first?" Grant asked.
"First," said Malcolm, "you pour yourself a tumbler full of whiskey and drink the whole damn thing."
"Ok," said Grant. He stood up. "Ok. I can do that."
The next hour was filled with snippets of advice from Malcolm in no real order. Grant resorted to taking notes during his crash course of how to hopefully fix things with his son.
"He's not a teenager, is he? He looks at least college age on the TV. That's good. He might actually listen to reason, as long as he's not a teen.
"Do you know anything about him? No? Then do a Google search on him, find out if he's on Facebook and Twitter, learn everything you can about him, but whatever you do, do not, I repeat, do not admit to doing any of this. He'll see it as an invasion of his privacy and throw a tantrum.
"Be prepared for everything to be all your fault. Because that's how kids see things, it's like they've got tunnel vision about this kind of thing."
Those were some of the bits of advice that Malcolm had to offer, reinforcing what Alan already knew. This was going to be damn hard.
But this was something he had to do. Alan Grant wasn't the kind of man who'd abandon a kid, let alone one that was his very own. Owen Grady might hate his guts, and that hate might not be entirely justified, but Alan was going to do his damnedest to be there for him now, because Owen was his.
From what he'd gathered from his thunderous argument with Samantha in her drunken state, Owen was one of the Jurassic World employees who'd returned to Isla Nublar to try to save as many of the dinosaurs as they could, and restore order to the park, if possible. So that's where Alan was headed.
He wondered if Samantha would call Owen and tell him what had just happened between them. That argument had been perhaps the worst, most vicious verbal fight Alan had ever been in, in his entire life. The towering rage he'd felt upon realizing what Samantha had been keeping from him, had him shaking, he was so furious. He'd screamed at Samantha like he'd never screamed at anyone before, cursing her stupidity and selfishness, refusing to accept her blame. It didn't matter that at the point they'd been together and broken up, he hadn't wanted children. There was no excuse on earth or in hell for her keeping something like that from him. Owen was his son. He'd had a right to know about his existence.
If he had, he would have done right by his son. Alan knew he would have, whatever Samantha believed. He might have been reluctant at first, but he would have come around. The evidence was there to prove it, in how he'd warmed to Lex and Tim Murphy. With them he didn't even have the added bond of being related, or watching them grow up. Not that he had the bond of watching Owen grow up either. He'd never have that now. Just the thought of that started making Alan angry all over again.
"You're going to Isla Nublar, aren't you?" Malcolm asked in between spouting out random bits of advice.
"Yes. I'll talk my way into getting there."
"You won't have to talk too hard. All you really have to do is offer to consult on how to handle this dino disaster and you're in. Funny. I never thought I'd see the day when either you or I went back to one of those damn dinosaur islands," Malcolm said.
"Neither did I," Grant admitted.
"You're making the right call. Going there to see him as soon as you found out, like this. It's the right thing," Malcolm said. "Even if he is on a dangerous dinosaur island where you're both likely to get eaten."
"That's not helpful, Ian."