Regina/Gail, pre-Dylan/Julia. We've never really met Julia, on account of her being canon-dead when you meet holographic future Dylan, so you get my wacky headcanon for her (when she's introduced).

I love Dino Crisis. Especially the first game. The second game is loads of fun to play, but I didn't get into the story as much. However, DC2 is the game that ended on a cliffhanger, so here. This will eventually acknowledge certain aspects of Dino Stalker, but I don't intend to delve too deeply into its plot. (The devs didn't, why should I?)

It was loud and it was hot. Everything trembled. Dylan could feel Paula shuddering beneath him. Until it just... stopped.

There should've been explosions.

Even more debris crashing down on them.

It all disappeared.

They weren't trapped, anymore. But they weren't dead, either. Unless this was the weirdest afterlife ever.

Dylan could hear voices, shuffling. Footsteps. The bustle of a small crowd approaching.

He looked up. He couldn't help thinking it shouldn't be so bright.

He wouldn't let go of Paula.

She couldn't stop trembling.

Then she did.

"Sorry it took so long."

"Regina?"

The whole room looked like some shitty VR simulation, and Regina was surrounded by bodies, armed and awaiting her orders if Dylan had to guess. Some were in suits, others in fatigues. There were even a couple in lab coats.

Now that Dylan had a minute to look Regina over, he saw that she was... old. Okay, not old. But older. There were a few wrinkles around her eyes, and gone was that chin-length, shock red bob. Instead, her hair was pulled into a sleek ponytail, and it was lighter. Strawberry blonde, almost.

Natural.

She wore a pantsuit, but she was still visibly strapped. Dressed for work, but hell if Dylan could figure out what the job was. He almost didn't recognize Regina like this. It was just too weird. Nowhere near as weird as realizing that Paula did recognize Regina like this, though.

The complex was clinical, clean. Far-removed from the front line, that much was clear. The sickbay doors whooshed open and Regina stepped inside. She waited to speak until the doors likewise whooshed closed behind her.

"How is she?" Regina asked, inching forward toward Paula's bedside.

Slow and steady, her chest rose and fell. She looked peaceful enough. She ought to; they sedated her after looking her over.

While looking her over.

"Sleeping," Dylan answered. "Nothing's broken. We were trapped, not injured. You were there."

"Right. She was trapped, and you were-" Regina cut herself off. "Well, she seems hardy. And resourceful. And it seems personal. Dylan?"

"It's a long story. Unless you're here to debrief me?"

"I think that can wait. Although, it's been a long time, and we still have a lot to do."

"How long?" Dylan dared to ask.

Judging by Regina's appearance and the fact that this place looked less like where he and David and the rest of the team were dispatched from and more like where they all ended up... Yeah.

David.

It was the first he'd really been able to think about the loss. The sacrifice. Plain and simple, it hurt. But now wasn't the time. If Dylan had to guess on that—the time, that is—and he does, he'd bet it's been about 15 years.

"Welcome to 2035."

Make that 25.

"Oh, fuck."

Well, that explained why Colonel Morton didn't look like a man pushing 71. Listen, Dylan works out, takes care of himself, but either that hologram was compensating for something or...

"I'm sorry." Regina looked plenty remorseful, that was for sure.

"For what?"

"For taking so long."

"Hasn't been that long for us."

"Well, that's something, I suppose." Regina's concession marked the first she really looked her age.

No. Not her age. But she looked tired. Emotionally worn out, more than anything, and it was just a weird thing to see. Even in the thick of things, with their timegate destroyed, and dinosaurs breathing down their necks, she was equal parts spitfire and just plain hellfire. To see her looking anything resembling rundown was a little unnerving.

Disheartening.

"I really am sorry," Regina insisted. But before Dylan could tell her to save the apologies, she was eyeballing Paula again. "I need to know who she is. Why you risked everything for her."

"She's my daughter."

"Come again?" Now that was the old Regina. The 'don't feed me any dumbshit lines' Regina.

"Swab us, draw blood, whatever. It's the truth. Time travel. Dinosaurs in the 21st century. This can't be that unbelievable to you."

"Did she tell you...? Because..."

"No." Dylan paused, damn well on purpose, too. He was annoyed by the skepticism, although he'd be just as suspicious if the tables were turned. "I did."

"...Okay."

Dylan figured changing the subject was probably for the best. What's more, he wasn't the slightest bit worried about someone coming around with a giant q-tip. He just asked, "You said we have a lot to do?"

"I meant the universal 'we.' You're in the medical bay, in case you didn't notice."

"You can't keep me in the dark."

"I don't plan to."

"Or sideline me." Something suddenly occurred to Dylan. "What about TRAT command?"

"Disbanded after the incident. None of you survived, after all."

"What do you mean disbanded? The unit?"

"The whole organization. You all were just another shadow group like SORT, anyway. It was all just too many cooks."

Dylan was offended, although he couldn't consciously say why. Maybe it was pride. Maybe it was hearing himself referred to as a casualty even now. "TRAT are not like SORT."

"Apples and oranges, then. And agree to disagree. I know now what you did before you joined up, remember? Same as the rest of your team. TRAT never did go recruiting at the local high school, did they?"

Dumpsters out back, or beneath the bleachers was more like it. Or alleyways after dark, far removed from where anyone innocent was likely to be. It made for a great story, the ex-gangbanger who cleaned up his act by enlisting. But that was the abridged version. The office Christmas party version. The story that glossed over who approached whom and what was really offered. What a guy agreed to when he had nothing to lose.

Dylan finally did have something to lose again, and he and Regina both knew it.

"She looks like you. I can't believe I never noticed before." There was something almost melancholy about Regina's tone. Maternal even, dare Dylan think it. And that just plain didn't compute. Because, well, no offense, and hell if Dylan would ever say it out loud, but Regina and maternal weren't words he ever thought would occupy his headspace at the same time. She was action, precision. No-nonsense. A career-focused hardass just like him.

Then again, he obviously settled down at some point.

Whoever would've thought Dylan would meet his daughter before he met her mother?

"Then the DNA test isn't necessary?" Dylan asked, against his better judgment.

Regina's chuckle was amused. "Oh, it's necessary. Get some rest."

"Hang on." Dylan stood up to follow her.

Regina stopped at the threshold. She turned her head slightly but didn't actually look back.

Dylan took the gesture for as much encouragement as he was going to get and asked, "You still didn't tell me: what else needs to be done?"

Regina turned to face him again. She stepped forward a bit and he suddenly felt too close to her. To... things.

"Screwing with time... it's what started all of this."

"All of what?"

Regina inhaled, held it, and on the exhale, insisted, "It's my fault."

"Your fault?" Dylan echoed.

It didn't seem right. He never ran into holo-Regina, after all. Lamenting her terrible decisions and, believing she had no other choice, putting all of her eggs in his basket. If anyone fucked anything up it was Dylan. Letting his wife die. Leaving his kid alone to fend for herself. Surrendering to his own fate and trusting his past self would set things right.

"2009. The first Third Energy incident." The line sounded so rehearsed, or maybe it was just that Regina had spoken it so many times before.

He could imagine the type of debriefing she'd endured, explaining to SORT command and whoever else what had happened.

To her, to her comrades.

Dylan only knew as much about the incident as he'd been permitted to read. He could fill in the blanks now in light of his own experience. But he remembered how badly he'd wanted to know. About the mission. About her. The woman who recaptured Edward Kirk, the father of the Third Energy. Who'd fought dinosaurs and lived to tell the tale. It was the reason she was brought on for the mission to rescue the citizens of Edward City. She was one of only four survivors of the incident at Ibis Island, and the only of her team still in the field.

"I didn't know what I was doing. All I knew was that I needed to overload the Third Energy generator. There was a vortex blocking our escape route and Kirk said that was the only way to get rid of it." Regina's regret was palpable. "Maybe it was, or maybe he was just toying with us. Either way, it worked. But that action, my action, disrupted the flow of time in such a way that humans could cease to ever exist."

What Dylan was hearing wasn't exactly a surprise. Some of the specifics were likely different than when he got that message circa 2055, but it all boiled down to the same thing. His future self was the superintendent of a project with that exact goal. The purpose of the Noah's Ark Project was to send dinosaurs so far into the future that they could thrive, that evolution could continue as it was meant to, then return them to their own time and let nature take its course. As if that course hadn't already been so corrupted and meddled with.

"God, I hate time travel," he muttered.

Regina snorted, but it almost looked like she was suppressing a laugh. "Welcome to the club."

I have the most basic of ideas as to how I want this all to turn out. But I'm more or less just winging it with the details. Dino Crisis 1 & 2 were great games and we deserved closure. Posting this because maybe if anyone reads and enjoys it, it'll be the fire under my ass that I need to actually finish it. I honestly don't know if the overdrive incident mentioned in the DC2 files (that necessitated the Noah's Ark Project) was Kirk's experiment on the cusp of Regina arriving to the facility or her overloading the generator to remove the vortex so they could escape. I went with the latter. If that's incorrect, consider this AU.