ADAPTATIONS

16 – The Dress

Friday morning arrived and with it, the hybrid noticeably more depressed than the day before. Aside from refusing to get up along with everyone else, she was a bit more irritable and crankier. Derek yelling at her to get up and help cook breakfast didn't help her mood, any. While there would be several volunteers from the dig site would be at the unveiling, she would be stuck in the trailer. Already, some of them had packed up and headed out to be there before the big day. It reminded her so much of Hammond's special events at the zoo that all the other zoo personnel were allowed to attend except her because of her differences.

After ten minutes of Pet and Derek exchanging vocal tangents at the other, Pet finally shuffled out of her bedroom. She plopped down on a barstool and snarled at Derek. She was so tunneled on all the ways she wanted to inflict as much unenjoyable pain on him as possible that she didn't notice the rectangular, white box sitting on the dining table.

Muldoon had noticed it, however, seeing how it was in his way while trying to read the morning paper. He stared at it in annoyance and abruptly interrupted the growling hybrid. "Will you shut the bloody hell up and get this thing out of my way?"

She snorted and turned around on the stool just enough to see what her best friend and guardian was referring to. She went over to it to see a tag read Pet on the front. The box was opened and Pet's jaw fell open in amazement. She tried to talk, but only stammers formed instead of coherent words. Ever so carefully she took the rust brown colored dress out of the box and held it up. Also, in the box was a matching shawl made with a see through, rust colored material. Along the edges of the shawl was beadwork matching the dress's.

Her eyes started to pool with tears as a sparkle lit up her face neither of the two men had ever seen before. "It's the dress from the mall!"

"Mhm," Derek beamed, flipping over an omelet in the skillet.

The woman refused to look away from the beadwork reflecting the morning sun shining in through the kitchen's cracked blinds. "Did you get this?" Her glassy blue-green eyes looked at Muldoon over the top of his newspaper.

"Don't look at me," the man stated, trying to hide his own smile but was failing. His grey eyes shifting to Derek answered the hybrid's question.

Pet spun around and gawked at the bounty hunter disbelievingly. "But…why?"

Derek shrugged. "When's the last time you can say you were given something nice?"

Without missing a beat, Pet answered with, "When John gave me the Jeep."

"Besides that."

The hybrid squinted an eye in thought. "My godfather bought me a pretty nice pistol for my birthday when I was still in Kenya."

Derek dropped his hand with the spatula in it and glowered at Pet. "Whatever." He shook his head. "You're welcome." Pet colliding into him without notice sent him stumbling backward and almost to the floor if it wasn't for his grabbing the oven door's handle to keep himself upright. "Whoa, what the hell?!"

At first, he thought maybe she was tackling him until he took a moment to realize she was tightly hugging him and…crying? "Thank you," she sniffed out. "I don't know why you got this thing, anyway, since I'm not allowed to go to the party."

"That's not what the Doc said yesterday."

Blue-green eyes were inches from scheming brown ones. "Wait, what?" Pet ran out of Quarantine with the dress still trapped in her clutches.

Muldoon's head snapped up to see the front door swinging open on its hinges. "Please tell me she wasn't barefoot!"


Grant grabbed his hat off the nail he kept it on by his trailer's front door and opened the door just in time to see a frantically running hybrid come right at him. Shimmering rust colored material flew past his face right before Pet slammed into his chest. Billy choked on a sip of his coffee at the sight of the barefoot hybrid wrapped around his mentor.

Grant didn't know how to react. It was either from the suddenness of what just happened or the fact he could feel the sharp points of sickle toe claws through his khaki pants dangerously close to breaking skin. Pet sobbed, "Thank you, thank you, thank you," repeatedly in his ear.

Derek ran up to the other trailer and snickered at the panicked scientist's quandary. Pet kissed Grant on the cheek. The senior scientist shooed the overly excited hybrid off of him. "Just be ready to leave out by noon, no later!"

As quickly as Pet arrived, she was gone. Fortunately for them, what site workers were currently awake and working were across the dig site and paying the young woman no attention.


By eleven forty-five, Pet was packed and ready to go. She had her dress neatly folded back up and placed in its box so it wouldn't get dirty during the trip. Derek was ready, too, and with his own clothing bag draped over an arm as he made his way to the Jeep. Like hell Muldoon was about to let Pet leave his sight for damn near three days and also loaded up a travel bag into the Jeep.

Pet became curious and questioned. "I take it a hotel room has already been reserved in Bozeman?"

Derek got into the driver's seat and answered. "Uncle Rob already took care of it yesterday."

Muldoon got comfortable in the passenger seat as Pet situated herself in the backseat. "That works."

Grant drove the museum truck around to Quarantine and in seeing the three people ready, drove ahead to lead the way. Seated beside him in the front passenger seat was Billy.


The drive to Bozeman was long for Pet, but not as long as it was from the bunker to the dig site. Roughly halfway through the trip, Grant pulled over at a truck stop to allow everyone a chance to stretch and use the restroom. Fifteen minutes later, the two vehicles were back on the road for the last half of the trip.

It was seven in the evening when they finally arrived at their destination. They checked into their rooms at a hotel off the interstate and a little way away from the museum. Pet looked at the two double beds and then to the fold out couch.

Derek scoffed. "Don't you even think about getting a bed, Pet. You got the bed at the trailer." He tossed his duffle bag onto the foot of the far bed by the window and opened the blinds.

Seeing how they were so close to the interstate, the nearby area offered a variety of restaurants and fast food places to choose from. Pet couldn't decide what she wanted for dinner and was torn on what to get.

"Get a little bit of everything," Derek suggested. "Get a steak quesadilla from one place, a large fry from another, a massive ass sized cherry coke from another and if you're still hungry then maybe see if there's a stray cat hanging around a dumpster somewhere." Thwap! Derek rubbed the back of his head, giggling. "Just saying should you feel the urge to have to kill something."

Pet took her dress out of the box and placed it on hanger in the closet. She gently ran a hand down the front of it where the beadwork sparkled and smiled.

Derek hung up his navy blue suit next to Pet's dress and looked around for his uncle. Since he was absent from the room, that could only mean he was still talking over the plans for the next night. He smirked. "So, uh…when do I get that thank you kiss for the dress?"

Pet squared her sly gaze down on him. "Let me have the bed and it's a deal."

"Oh, ho, ho look at you trying to strike a deal with me! I'm out almost three hundred dollars. I think a kiss is an acceptable thank you."

"You do realize I have a boyfriend, right?"

Derek shrugged. "He's not here. What he doesn't know won't hurt him."

Pet patted the man on the cheek and walked away. "Nice try, but not happening."

Derek tried hard to keep a straight face. "One day, Pet. One day. You'll realize I'm the man of your dreams." Amused raptor eyes didn't blink off cocky brown ones. "Even if it means wearing old man clothes and a hat." Pet shook her head and laughed under her breath.


The next day was boring. Pet hoped to go out and see the town with Billy, but he was having to accompany his boss to the museum. The two were gone for the better part of the day until Ellie arrived at the hotel later in the afternoon. She was carrying her dress in one hand and a plastic grocery bag with her shoes and clutch purse inside it in her other hand. Slung over a shoulder was a backpack with what, Pet could only guess.

She was excited to see her good friend and the two quickly struck up girl talk about the unveiling in three hours. Muldoon thought nothing about it as he found it rather cute Pet was able to hang out with another woman. It wasn't often she had a female influence in her life as he felt it was the one thing she lacked growing up; a mother figure to look up as a role model.

Pet and Ellie moved their conversation to the bathroom with their dresses in hand to start getting ready for the party. Ellie hung her dress off the shower curtain rod along with Pet's and sat her backpack down on the floor. From there, she took out a can of hair spray, mouse, a bronze colored can of something, a curling iron, a fold up hair dryer, along with gallon sized baggies holding makeup and nail polishes and hair clips.

Pet blinked at the assortment of cosmetics and frowned. It didn't occur to her that she didn't have any of that stuff with her; correction at all! "This is awkward," she began, blushing. "I wonder if Derek can drive me up to the store for some makeup."

Ellie giggled. "You can use some of mine. I just bought a bunch of new stuff last week I haven't even opened yet. I did, however, grab this on my way here."

She held the bronze bottle. Pet looked at it confusedly. "What is it?"

"A spray tan. I thought it would help your skin tone look more natural and not distinctly different."

Pet looked at her arms. "But I already look like I have a tan."

For someone who was part highly intelligent animal, the hybrid sure was oblivious to some stuff. "You're going to be wearing a backless dress, Veronica. Your two-toned skin will be really visible. I'm hoping this," she giggled the bottle, "will hide some of that by making your skin look the same color."

"Ooohh! Will it hurt?"

Ellie giggled again. "No."

Horror struck Pet. "Oh no. My dress."

Ellie looked between the younger woman and the dress hanging up. "What about it?"

"You just said it…it's backless." Pet saw the befuddlement on Ellie's face and turned around, taking off her shirt. Beneath the back strap of her bra were several scars from claw marks running in all different directions and stretching to her sides. Then came what looked like a bite mark on her shoulder.

Ellie's stomach flopped over itself with the ideas of what all the hybrid had endured on the islands by herself. "I see what you mean."

Pet brought a hand to the three scars on her left shoulder blade. "Velociraptor," she touched the top of a series of scars at the base of her neck that went to the middle of her back, "T-Rex teeth marks," and then to the bite mark on her shoulder, "and leopard from where it bit me in Kenya." Pet could see the woman's speechless reflection in the bathroom mirror. "What doesn't kill me only makes me stronger, right?" Blue eyes blinked. "Know any way on how to hide those?"

Ellie cringed. "Maybe some of it can be hidden with your hair down and your shawl on."


In the course of an hour and a half, the hotel room filled with the prominent odors of hairspray, nail polish, and perfume. Derek had since left the room to see if Grant and Billy were back. He needed to get away from the headache inducing girly smells. He returned only briefly to get his clothes and dress shoes out of the closet before he was gone again.


"No, no and absolutely hell no am I coming out of this bathroom," Pet ranted from the other side of the bathroom's closed door. Standing in front of it was Ellie, dressed in a floor length, elegant sky-blue dress dotted with tiny silver rhinestones. Her equally blue eyes frowned at the door. The event started at seven. "Make that, out of this hotel room," Pet continued.

Stretched out on his bed was Muldoon and doing everything in his power to keep from eyeballing the paleobotanist. He had always found her rather attractive, even back on Isla Nublar. It meant a lot to him to see the lovely scientist reach out to the hybrid in such a positive way.

Ellie winced. "I thought you looked fine, Veronica. I don't know what you're so worked up over."

"Are you kidding me?" Pet hysterically questioned. "They'll never let me live this down! At what I'm wearing!? At how I look?!" The mixed sound of a whimper and raptor like snort came from the bathroom, next. "I'm wearing a dress! A dress! I've never worn a dress before!" Ellie tried to muffle a small snicker behind her hand, but it didn't work. "It's not funny. A knock at the hotel room's door got Ellie's attention and she answered it.

Derek stood in the hallway and dressed down in a sharp navy-blue suit and light grey dress shirt. Beside him was Billy looking just as dapper in a black suit and white dress shirt. "Is it safe to come in?"

"Yes, it's safe to come in," Ellie replied in a smile.

Pet called out. "What are you doing here?"

Both men stepped into the room and took a good look at Ellie, surprised. Derek nodded in approval. "Wow, Dr. Sattler, you look nice." Billy agreed.

The hybrid called from the safety of the bathroom again. "I asked you a question, dipshit."

Knowing she was referring to him, the bounty hunter answered. "Unless you forgot, I'm staying here, too. That and the Doc sent me in here to see if you were ready or not."

A grumble came in response, "No. I'm molting."

Derek laughed. "What a load of bollox, Pet. Now come on, get your ass out here so we can get going."

"Who's we?"

"Dr. Sattler, boy toy, me-"

"And me," came Grant's response as he, too, entered the hotel room wearing his dark grey suit and matching tie. He hated dressing up as it felt unnatural. "What's the hold up? We need to leave soon if we're going to get there on time." He studied the two dressed up men in the room and to the worrisome looking Ellie. "Well?"

Ellie answered. "Veronica is a little nervous."

The hybrid spoke up. "I look like an idiot."

Derek blurted, "Oh, I've got to see this! Pet, quit hiding so I can laugh hysterically at you!"

Grant was growing impatient and closed the room's door behind him. "It's time to go, now either get your ass in the truck or you're getting left behind."

Pet whimpered and finally opened the door. She stepped a heeled ankle booted foot around the door and came into view. Derek's eyes almost popped out as Grant momentarily forgot how to breathe in the several moments he stood there, speechless and visually drinking in every detail of the hybrid. The color of the dress complimented her natural looking skin tone perfectly. It was as if the dress was made for her.

Billy was flabbergasted and blinked. Was this the same woman he had been dating for…wow a month and a half? Had it really been that long since their first date? He'd lost track of the days, since one tended to blend into the other. Well, he really couldn't say they had been steadily dating the whole time, since things kind of went back and forth for a little while. It was almost a week ago that he learned of her secret. Whatever. It didn't matter. As far as he knew, they were steadily dating now.

Curiosity got the best of Muldoon and he looked over at the hybrid. "Well would you look at that..."

Derek laughed. "I can't believe it, either! Pet's a chick!"

If it wasn't for her freshly painted brick red 'fingernails', Pet would have backhanded the bounty hunter in the gut.

Grant nervously cleared his throat. "We should get going before we're late."

"Yeah," Ellie agreed and left the hotel room after Grant, Derek and Billy.

Pet frowned. She adjusted her beaded shawl around her shoulders and followed the group of people to the elevator, down to lobby and out to the parking lot. No way was she about to ride with the men and joined Ellie at her SUV.