What? I'm back? I know, I'm just as surprised as you are. While this story is not fully written, it is 95% planned out and about 2/3s written. I'm hoping by posting now I'll catch a few of you on holidays and get you excited for a new story.

This story is the fourth part in my Illusion of Control trilogy (now a triology of 4). You can find the rest by clicking on my username (if you haven't read them). I do recommend reading them, but if you don't want to, here's what you need to know:

Claire and Owen have been dating for a couple of years now. Claire continues to be in charge over on Nublar for Jurassic World. Claire is about to launch a new Edmontosaurus project. Owen is now based on Sorna as the head of the Raptor project, and he has two groups of raptors (Blue, Echo and Charlie from the original group, and two baby ones Olive and Grape). At the end of the last part, they discovered that there are also wild raptors on Sorna.

Prologue

"Have you seen my blue shirt?" Owen called out as he dug through his drawers. "I swear I saw it here earlier."

"Which one?" Claire asked as she wandered into their bedroom, a load of finished laundry in her arms.

"My blue tee shirt," he repeated, turning around to face her. He watched as she walked over to their bed, dumping the load of laundry on it. "The one with the NAVY logo on it." He turned back to the drawers he had already dug through a couple of times, giving one more half-hearted attempt at searching for it. "It's my favourite."

"This one?"

Owen turned around to see Claire holding up the shirt in question. "Yes!" He held out his hand as she tossed it in his direction. He quickly folded it, before adding it to the duffle bag that was resting on top of the drawers. "Okay, I think that's everything."

He looked down into the bag, poking through it quickly to double check. Confident he was done, he zipped it up before turning away and walking over to the bed where Claire was folding laundry. He grabbed a shirt off the stack and joined her, the two of them quickly finishing the task. Once it was all folded, he took his clothes to his drawers to put away, Claire doing the same with hers.

As he shut the final drawer, Owen was suddenly aware how quiet their place was. They'd both been busy all evening, rushing around to get the final few loads of laundry done so Owen could finish packing. But now, as he stood there, he realized that they'd done most of it in silence. Normally, Claire would be talking constantly, filling him in on the latest gossip or venting about something that had happened. But not tonight.

"You okay?" he asked, looking over at her where she stood by the closet.

Claire turned to him, looking surprised by his question.

"You've been awfully quiet tonight."

She opened her mouth to respond, before pausing and then instead giving him a half-hearted shrug, a confused and somewhat lost look now on her face.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she started, before letting out a sigh. "It was really nice having you around these past couple of weeks. I think it's just hitting me that you're heading back to Sorna tomorrow. I'm going to miss it."

"It was really nice to be around," he agreed, leaning against the wall by his dresser, his gaze darting about their bedroom taking it all in. "And even nicer to have gotten away for a bit."

"So are you admitting now that vacations can be a good thing?" she asked, a bit of a mischievous glint now sparkling in her eye.

"Um, I think you may be the pot calling the kettle black here," he pointed out, although happy she seemed to be perking up a bit. "It's not just me that has a hard time getting away."

"We really are two of a kind, aren't we?" she agreed, a small chuckle escaping.

"We should probably start a 'workaholics anonymous' or something."

"Wouldn't be all that anonymous if it's just the two of us," she pointed out.

"There are others who should join. But yeah, not all that anonymous because most of the people who need to be in it are our friends," Owen said. He held up a hand, ticking off his fingers as he stated names. "Barry. Zia. Zara. Masrani."

"Lowery," Claire added when he paused.

"Lowery? Really?"

"Yeah, I got more emails from him these last two weeks than Zara," she said.

"Huh, who would've thought," Owen said, shaking his head.

"He has particular ways he likes to do things. He doesn't like when his routine is messed with," Claire explained.

"Sounds kinda like the raptors," he said. "I lost track of the number of emails Barry sent complaining about that."

"I bet they'll be excited to see you tomorrow," she replied, her tone growing wistful as she looked away from him.

"I wish you were going over with me," he said, pushing away from the wall. "I know they'd love to see you again."

"Sadly, I will be buried under the mountain of paperwork that is on my desk," Claire said with a groan and a shudder. "Ugh, I don't even want to think about what that looks like."

"So don't think about it," Owen agreed. He took the couple of steps across the room to her side, reaching out to rest his hands on her hips and pulling her towards him. "This is our last night together. Work should be the last thing on our minds."

"You got some other ideas?" she asked, a grin appearing on her face as she wrapped her arms around him, pulling herself closer.

"I do," he agreed with an eyebrow wiggle. He dipped his head down to kiss her, just a peck at first, before pressing his mouth to hers, deepening it the moment her lips parted. He slid one hand around her back and under her shirt. This would definitely be a better way to spend their final evening.

However, just as he was about to start pushing her shirt up, Claire pulled back from him slightly.

"Oh wait," she said, pushing against him lightly although staying within his grasp.

"What?" he asked, not actually stopping, his lips just moving from hers and along her jaw, and then searching out the spot behind her ear. The one he knew would cause her to stop talking.

"Owen, wait," she pushed against his shoulders again, although he felt her knees buckle for a second when he found the spot. "I forgot to give you some papers you need to take."

"Papers?" Distracted, Owen finally pulled back so he could look at her, confused. "What papers?"

"Zara dropped them off. Something that Kathy needs and that Masrani was hoping you could take over for us."

"Who needs?" Owen felt even more confused. "And when did you see Zara?"

Claire pulled away fully, turning to walk out of their bedroom as she called over her shoulder. "She stopped by when you were in the shower. Said she wanted to make sure you got these papers before she forgot."

Owen trailed after her out of the room. "Masrani wants me to take papers to Sorna for who? Why?"

"For Kathy," Claire repeated, picking up a manilla folder off the coffee table. She turned around, handing the folder to him. He just looked at her blankly. "Your new boss, remember? Kathy Wright."

At that, his eyes widened, his jaw dropping open slightly. Nope, he definitely had not remembered that. Although, to be fair, he had been mostly trying to forget that was even happening. While he wasn't upset that he hadn't been given the role, he wasn't looking forward to having a new boss.

"Oh. Right. Her."

"Seriously Owen, how did you forget about her?"

"I didn't forget about her, I just didn't bother to remember her."

"Owen," Claire said, drawing out his name.

"Claire," he mocked her tone.

She rolled her eyes. "Pretending she's not going to be there isn't going to make it true. And you're going to need to work closely with her. Hasn't Barry said anything yet?"

"Um, maybe?" he searched his memory, not sure if someone named Kathy had come up in the emails they'd exchanged. "Our emails were all really about the girls. Charlie tripped and fell a week ago and so has been having some more issues with her limp. And then Grape and Olive–"

Claire cut him off as she reached for him, her hand resting on his arm. "Wait, is Charlie okay?'

"She's fine," he said with a quick nod.

"You sure?"

"Yes." It took all his effort not to roll his eyes at her. And, if he was being fair, it'd be hypocritical of him to judge her for this, since he'd panicked when he'd first got Barry's email. "Zia looked her over too and said she just needed a few days to walk it off. Barry said I probably wouldn't even be able to tell anything happened when I see her tomorrow."

"You'll send me a pic?" Claire asked.

"I'll send you a video," he promised. "Of all of them." He paused, before admitting. "I've loved being with you these past two weeks, but I really am dying to see them again. It's the longest I've been away from them."

"I know you were joking earlier, but I kind of wish I could go over with you. It would be nice to see them again," she said, before pausing. "I can't believe I just said that, about raptors."

"I wasn't joking," Owen protested, choosing to focus on her wanting to see the raptors. "I'd love it if you came over. And now knowing that my new boss Kathy is there, even doubly so. You could be our mediator." He looked down at the folder he was holding. He really had forgotten Kathy Wright was starting.

"You're not going to need a mediator. You'll be fine. I talked with her a couple of weeks ago. I think you'll actually quite like her," Claire told him. She pointed at the folder he was looking at, "But put that in your bag before we both forget."

Nodding, Owen started walking back towards the bedroom before he realized something. "Wait, you talked to her? When?"

"Just before we left. Since she was going to start while I was away, I just had a quick call to introduce myself. I'll have a more formal introduction later. Either when I can finally get over there, or when she comes back here to Nublar."

"Hm," Owen just said, not sure what to make of that. And not really sure what questions he had for Claire about Kathy. His plan so far had been to just pretend she wasn't starting, and then to deal with it when he finally had to. He and the raptors had been doing well enough on their own, he didn't think he needed anyone else to meddle in on everything. "Do you have any plans to come over soon?"

"Not at the moment, unfortunately," Claire said. "But, I also don't know everything that's happened since we were gone. While Zara's kept me abreast of all the major things, there's still so much I need to catch up on. And the Edmontosaurus project is kicking off more fully soon. So I will eventually need to come over for that."

"Will I get to see you more?" Owen asked as he unzipped his bag, shoving the folder within. After closing it back up, he turned back to her. "I mean, it'll be all based on Sorna for at least a few months, right? So if you're going to keep an eye on it…"

"Yeah, I'll likely be coming over more regularly. But," she said, pointing a finger at him, "that doesn't mean you're excused from coming back here."

"Wasn't trying to get out of that. But, I am going to be stuck there for the next three weeks."

Claire frowned. "Wait, what happened to your 10 and 4 schedule?"

"I need to give Barry a longer break after these past two weeks. So he's going to take a week off. After that we'll be back on track. So see if you can come over soon."

"I'll try," she agreed. "Just promise me one thing when you go back."

"What? And I thought we weren't doing promises."

"Different kind of promise," she said. "It's just, I know you're going to be so happy to see your girls—all of them—but just try to remember that they have claws, will you? While I do want to see you again soon, I'd prefer you stay in one piece." At her words, she reached out, running her hand down his arm, the one he seemed to constantly be injuring.

"Hey, it's been months since I was last injured," he protested. "Give me some credit here."

"The fact that we can only talk in months, and not years, is why I worry."

"Instead of focusing on that," Owen said, stepping closer to her, a grin appearing on his face. "Maybe we should go back to what we were going to do earlier."

"Hm, remind me again?" she asked as she slid her arms around his waist.

"Well, I was in the middle of…" He started pressing kisses along her jaw. "Middle of this, and was about to…" he trailed off again, as he worked his way back to the spot behind her ear.

I'm hoping this will be worth the wait. And even if it isn't, please lie and tell me it is. :P But, more honestly, I'd love any feedback you have. And if you want to follow along, don't forget to subscribe and follow. Hoping to post weekly, probably starting with chapter 1 this coming Thursday.