It was cold where Blue lay. She groaned, groggily opening her eyes, she was strapped down to a large operating table in a painfully white, disgustingly clean room. She tried to stand, but of course, her restraints prevented much movement. The raptor began to panic, Blue began to squawk and struggle.

But she froze when a door to her right opened. She growled low in her chest, trying to wriggle out of the straps, but a sharp shooting pain shot through her. She growled painfully and lay still.

"Blue, easy girl. Easy."

He sounded like her alpha.

He moved like her alpha.

He was no longer alpha.

She gave a low warning growl as Owen drew close.

Just as he thought.

Grady heaved a sigh and kept his distance. "Blue, baby, it's me." he tried again. However, his raptor wasn't paying him any mind. Her brief struggles weakened her and she barely had the strength to look at him, or, she didn't want to.

Owen frowned. He'd certainly hoped it would be alright after the surgery, that she'd...he heaved a sad sigh and left the room.

"Will someone take those damned straps off before she hurts herself again?" he snapped at the nearest guy. He couldn't help it. Stress was making him irritable.

The worry for Blue's physical state trumped concern for how she'd now perceive him. So, Owen Grady would have to dig deep.

"Blue, goddammit-" Owen cursed and held his finger, trying his best to staunch the blood flow and get Blue away from it. She hopped off his leg and nestled down on the floor, a smug look on her face.

"You little shit,"Owen said shaking his head and wrapping his wound up.

The little raptor was a foot long now, and getting bigger each day.

She reminded Owen of the little nestling hawks he used to raise, but much more active and much faster of course. She stayed with him constantly, and treated him as her parental figure, but it was obvious she was more...independent than the birds Owen worked with.

The main thing was that she trusted him. And only him.

She looked up at him and tilted her head, squeaking slightly.

"Yeah, yeah," He shook his head and sat back on the couch. Owen had taken the little raptor to his quarters on site, he needed to be with her each day for extended periods, otherwise there would be a backslide in training.

Now, he needed to start again.

"Blue!" he said sharply. "Eyes on me." he warned.

Click. Clickclickclick.

Golden eyes trained on him.

"Good." Owen praised.

However the little raptor took this to mean she was free to look away now. "Hey! No. Eyes. On. Me." he warned. The rest of the pack, smaller raptors watched from their crates. Owen hated putting them there, but at the moment, they were too dangerous to be around Blue, even if she was supposed to be beta. It didn't help that they totally disregarded Owens' authority, that gave Blue the false sense that she could too. After a few hours of that, Owen finally released Blue and the others to their paddock.

Blue went first, so that she could establish her own territory, and make sure she knew everything about where she was.

She had an edge here.

Barry released the rest, while Owen watched on the outskirts of the pen.

The raptors dove into the undergrowth, searching out the loner, it didn't take long before they found her. Blue squealed in pain as they ganged up.

They all knew each other from birth, and they all knew Owen, but still, ranks ran strong in their blood.

A little like wolves, Owen thought to himself. And right now, Blue was at the lowest part of their chain. The man stood by, ready to intervene if things got hairy, when...well, they did.

Charlie had Blue's throat in her jaws, ready to clamp down when Owen shouted, "HEY!" The clicker sounded.

Blue was hastily released only to be shoved by Delta.

The little blue-striped dinosaur growled, and nipped at Deltas' heels and all hell broke loose. Owen threw his coat on them, and slowly, their struggling decreased. He dug through the tangle of claws and teeth to pick out his beta. Blue was shaking and was generally scared. However, she had gotten in several wounding blows.

"Delta, Charlie, bad." This was all he could say, his heart pounding.

"Owen you crazy sonuvabitch." Barry slapped his knee, laughing like an idiot.

She became more confident after that row. Still, alpha was there. He put them back in their place.

Owen watched as Blue, fully grown, injured just lay on the table, the straps had been removed but she refused to move a muscle.

Barry looked to Owen, the man had a face of stone, and about as expressive at the moment, no wisecrack jokes, no laughter, he was thoroughly troubled. "It'll be alright, Grady," Barry claimed and put a hand on his friends shoulder. "You'll get through to her. Five years of trust and love...that's...that's hard to break away completely."

Owen grumbled, shrugging Barry away. "No, you know what happened to Lacy." he growled and Barry grew quiet. Yes. Yes he knew exactly what happened to that sweet raptor, uncharacteristically tame, beast.

"That doesn't give you any reason not to try," Barry reasoned.

"I know that, Barry. I know, that's why I'm going to..." Owen didn't sound hopeful but he turned to watch Blue through the door. She'd moved off the table and was crouched on the floor, and it seemed she didn't take her eyes off that door.

Her growls could be heard, distrustful, angry growls.

Owen would have to start soon if there was to be any chance of redemption in his raptor's eyes.

"Hey Blue,"

A/N- I just wanna say, thank you to my lovely reviewers. I'm sorry for the shortness of this chapter, but I haven't much time to write right now, I just wanted to give you a little something until I can finish this thing! I hope you enjoyed that, so...yeah. Please leave a review, any criticism would be helpful tome.

-Houdini