Disclaimer: I do not own the Jurassic Park franchise or any of it's characters; I only own the characters and plots of my own mind.

Foreword: This is a prequel to my Jurassic World fanfic 'This Damnable Place.' I'd tell you to go read what chapters I've posted to it, but, since this is a prequel, you don't have to! It's also a companion piece to said fic. Anyway, enjoy! :)

Family Fun

Gwyn could feel the skin on the back of her neck burning as she bent over the mostly unearthed raptor skeleton. She had been kneeling in that position for at least an hour, expanding on the work her father and the workers had been doing before they broke for a short lunch. She held a dust encrusted brush in one hand as she swept sand away from what was, quite clearly now, a raptor claw. Or, half of one really––the other half was still buried in the earth. A gust of wind swept by in a cloud of dust and dirt, which prompted the eleven year-old to throw her body over the fossilized claw to protect it. Her feet were kicked up in the air, displaying her slightly too large boots, and her head was ducked, which caused her nose to press into the dry earth. Gwyn's back was uncomfortably arched as not to let her stomach press against the claw, and the brushes she'd been using were still clenched in her hands. As the wind died down, it was replaced with the flat, stifling heat brought by the afternoon sun.

"Gwyn!" Head popping up with hair flying out of her ponytail, Gwyn stared wide-eyed at her father and Ellie Sattler, her father's girlfriend, climbing back up the hill towards her. Alan Grant, Gwyn's father, had his arms spread wide, and a look of abject, stern confusion was plain on his face.

"Hi, dad," she said, pushing herself back onto her knees. Dirt coated the tip of her nose and a streak of it appeared on her forehead as she swiped the back of her hand across it. Alan gestured to the spot of ground she'd been hunched over; his forehead was creased, his brows, were furrowed, and his mouth, which was slightly ajar, was also pulled into a frown. That was the look of an oncoming reprimand. Gwyn sank back to sit on her heels, the heels of her boots pressing into the backs of her thighs.

"What were you doing?"

"I was unearthing the claw." She leaned to the side so she could look around Alan and see the blond haired paleobotanist. With a smile as she fell slightly off balance––much to her father's horror seeing as her knees fell too close to the excavation area––Gwyn said, "Hi, Ellie."

"Hi, Gwyn," Ellie said with a gentle laugh.

"You did so without my permission," Alan pointed out firmly. Gwyn's smile faded as she shifted to sit on her bum, looping her arms around her knees. Her gaze was redirected to the claw, which had only been a quarter unearthed when Alan and Ellie had left for lunch. She would have thought he might've been impressed at what she'd managed to do in the last hour, at how careful she'd been, at the admittedly near-professional work she'd done. Looking back up at Alan, she tried to smile again, a quietly nervous laugh pushing through her lips.

"But… you've only got half of it to go, now," she pointed out, a hopeful tone to her voice. Hopeful that he would see how proud she was of what she'd done.. hopeful that he would be proud.

That was one of the problems, Gwyn supposed, with having a famous father who was exceptionally excellent at what he did. She wanted to make him proud and show him that she, too, was quite good at being a paleontologist even though she was only eleven. And she was for her age. Alan had taught her all that she knew about excavation and dinosaurs; he'd not spared any of the gory, horrific details, and she hadn't asked him to. But all she had wanted as of late was for him to see that she knew how to apply what she'd learned.

"And you did it without my permission, Gwyn. I've told you that you cannot do any unauthorized or unassisted excavating; it risks ruining the integrity of the fossils," Alan scolded in a stern, flat tone. Gwyn's shoulder slumped in a deflated manner, dropping her chin onto the tops of her knees, avoiding her father's eyes. "Hey." Alan crouched down across from her, forearms braced on his knees. Both his brows rose when Gwyn glanced at him from the corner of her eye for a brief second. "Look at me." Once she complied begrudgingly, Alan continued to talk. "I understand that it's exciting, I understand that you thought you were helping. But you can't do something so important without permission. These bones are––"

"Sixty-five million years old, I know…" Gwyn muttered, having heard this speech before. "They're fragile, practically priceless, and…"

"And not for kids to play with," Alan finished off. He nodded back to the trailer that acted as camp base. "Why don't you go get some lunch? You haven't eaten anything since seven this morning."

Gwyn nodded silently, pushing herself to her feet before walking a deliberately wide berth around the excavated claw. Alan held out a hand to stop her, halting her mid step, he nodded to the left, signalling her to come closer. Gwyn shuffled to the side a few steps, expecting more stern words, which she wouldn't have put past him. Instead he reached out and took hold of her chin gently, tilting her head back as, with the other hand, he dug a red bandana out of his back pocket.

"As cute as it is to look like a Dirt Fairy… you aren't one anymore," Alan teased gently, lifting the bandana to wipe the dirt off her forehead. He then moved on to gently rubbing the dirt off of her nose, a look that was actually quite becoming on her. With a smirk, he tweaked the tip of it once he was done, which brought a smile to her lips and drew a giggle from her throat. Alan had used to call her the Dirt Fairy when she was significantly younger, when she had run into the house or across the dig-site absolutely covered in dirt. She'd always loved dirt, and didn't consider a day good enough if she didn't get to play in it at least once. Chuckling, Alan placed his hand on her back and ushered her back down the hill, turning to watch her go as the other workers returned from lunch. Ellie, who had been smiling from the previous display of fatherly affection, whacked him gently with the back of her hand. He looked at her to see that, while she was smiling, there was an accusation in her eyes. "What?"

"She was just trying to help," Ellie defended gently, gesturing to the claw. Alan sighed and rubbed his eyes. He was well aware of that, but he was being professional. He had to be professional, even when it came to his daughter––especially when it came to his daughter on-site.

"Gwyn is eleven, she doesn't know––"

"Don't say she doesn't know what she's doing. You have been teaching her what to do for years!"

"Yes, but, Gwyn doesn't know how to properly apply what I've taught her. She's still a kid," Alan rephrased with a careful and slow precision, kneeling down where his daughter had been a minute ago. Ellie rolled her eyes and placed both hands on her jean clad hips; she watched as Alan tilted his head and rubbed at his chin, observing just what Gwyn had done in the last hour and, perhaps, reconsidering what he'd just said.

"I don't know about you, but I think it looks like she did a pretty good job. There are no egregious errors that I can see… she was very careful. Didn't dig too deep… didn't brush away too much dirt… and she didn't rush. She only uncovered a quarter more than what we'd left." Ellie crouched down and pulled her hat onto her head, making sure that the floppy brim covered the back of her neck. "She isn't gonna be a 'kid' for much longer, Alan. Her birthday is in a two weeks! And then it'll only be a year till she's a teenager."

Alan's nose screwed up and his lips pulled themselves downwards into a frown.

"Don't remind me," he grumbled. Ellie laughed and leaned over to pick up Gwyn's abandoned brushes. Alan pushed his sunglasses on and ran his fingers over the three inches of exposed claw. He did have to admit… Gwyn had done a pretty damn good job, even if she wasn't supposed to. Though, he supposed if there was any child who was going to be good at paleontology, it was going to be his.

Gwyn sat at the cluttered pick-nick table holding a sandwich in one hand and a pencil in the other. She was drawing a sloppy looking velociraptor, the pencil led scratching against the notebook paper in short strokes. She wasn't the best artist, but she wasn't horrible; though she wanted to take classes to improve her skills. Though, Gwyn wasn't sure when she'd actually have the time to take any such classes. She and her father moved around a lot depending on where Alan found himself employed, though Montana tended to be rich in dig sites; hence was the reason their house was in said state. In her eleven years, Gwyn had been to a number of different schools, and found she prefered the familiarity of paleontologists to teachers and open landscape to classrooms. Though she went anyway, as per her father's instruction and her dream of someday being a paleontologist.

"Hey, Gwyn!" someone called. She looked up while chewing a mouthful of her lunch and spotted Jared, a young paleontologist who sat under a tent that shaded a computer system that had been acting finicky all day. Once Jared saw he'd grabbed her attention, he waved her over as he pushed away from the table. Almost everyone on sight adored Gwyn, especially since she helped out with whatever needed helping, and stayed out of the way when she needed to. She was shockingly mature for her age, and that earned her a good dose of respect. "The computer's rebooted; we're gonna try again!"

"I'll go get my dad!"

Once Gwyn had retrieved her father, she went about finishing her lunch before joining all the other paleontologists around the computer screen as Jared told Ellie that the results of shooting the radar into the ground should be near instantaneous. Sure enough, the screen clicked to life and wobbly, fuzzy shapes began to appear.

"This program is incredible… a few more years development and we won't even have to dig anymore," Jared was murmuring as an image of a velociraptor skeleton came fuzzily into view on the screen. Alan, who had removed his hat and sunglasses, leaned up against the tent pole. He scoffed quietly and crossed his arms.

"Where's the fun in that?" he inquired. He earned a snicker from the rest of the paleontologist, and a fond squeeze of the arm from Ellie, who smiled brightly at him. Gwyn stood to Alan's right, a notepad and pencil in hand with a fresh page to write on at the ready. Alan got her to take notes on occasion, since her handwriting was much better than his; that, and she was just good at writing quickly.

"It's a little distorted… but I don't think it's the computer."

"Mm… post-mortem contraction of the posterior neck ligaments," Ellie listed off, approaching the screen. She pointed to said marks, eyes narrowed to see the tiny details. Alan playfully nudged Gwyn's shoulder and waggled his fingers down at her notepad, which was beaten around the edges and coated in a fine layer of dust.

"You got that?"

"Post-mortem contraction to the posterior neck ligaments, yup," she repeated as she wrote them down. Alan winked at her and flanked Jared on his right just as Ellie did on his left. He bent at the waist and stared at the radar image on the screen.

"Velociraptor?" Ellie inquired.

"Yeah––in good shape, too. It's… five, six feet high, I'm guessing nine feet long. Look at the extremities––" he cut himself off when the screen fuzzed into static as he tapped the screen. "What did it do?"

"You touched it," Ellie laughed as the image reappeared. He touched the top of the computer again and the screen delved into static again. Ellie, laughing harder, nudged Jared and smiled over at Gwyn, who was biting her lip and smiling. "Dr. Grant isn't computer compatible."

"It's got it in for me…" he muttered under his breath distastefully. He refocused himself and pointed to the raptor's talons. "And look at the half-moon shaped bones in it's wrists… No wonder these guys learned how to fly." There was a sense of whimsy in his voice, admiration. He had written an entire book about dinosaurs and birds, and how he thought they were related, how he thought some of them had turned into birds. A resounding chuckle echoed around him. "No, seriously. Alright…" Alan turned to face his comrades and Ellie and Gwyn moved off to the side, having heard this speech many times before. Many times before. "Well, maybe dinosaurs have more in common with present day birds than they do with reptiles. Look at the… pubic bone––turned backward, just like a bird. Look at the vertebrae, full of air-sacks and hollows just like a bird, and even the word raptor means 'bird of prey.'"

"That doesn't look very scary!" exclaimed a young voice from the edge of the group. Everyone turned to see a young boy, maybe around Gwyn's age, standing not too far away. He looked deeply skeptical of Alan's theory, eyes narrowed under the bill of his baseball cap. Alan turned slowly, returning the look the boy was tossing his way. The other paleontologists stepped to either side, allowing their site-leader and mentor ample space to step forward; because if there was one thing they could be sure about, it was the fact that Alan wouldn't leave this matter lie. "More like a… six-foot turkey!"

"A turkey…" Alan murmured as everyone around them chuckled with amusement. Ellie nudged Gwyn's side with her elbow and smiled.

"Oh no… here we go," she said under her breath, stepping forward to follow Alan as he approached the boy. Gwyn smiled and sat herself down on one of the equipment crates, watching as her father placed his fingers to his temples for a moment, pacing forward as he launched into a speech.

"Okay. Try to imagine yourself in the Cretaceous Period. You get your first look at this… 'six foot turkey' as you enter a clearing. He moves like a bird, lightly, bobbing his head. And you keep still because you think that maybe his visual acuity is based on movement like T-Rex - he'll lose you if you don't move. But no, not Velociraptor." Alan waggled his hand from side to side, dismissing the thought. The boy rolled his eyes and Alan pointed at himself. "You stare at him," he pointed to the boy, "and he just stares right back. And that's when the attack comes. Not from the front, but from the side––thwip!," Alan brought the pointer finger of either hand together, swiping them through the air as the boy's eyes widened, "and the other two raptors you didn't even know were there. Because Velociraptor's a pack hunter, you see, he uses coordinated attack patterns and he is out in force today." Alan began to circle around the boy, both hands casually resting on his hips. One of his hands snuck into his pocket and curled around the object that sat there. "And he slashes at you with this…" he withdrew his hand to reveal the raptor claw he'd taken from the dig-site, which was brandished between his fore and second finger, "a six-inch retractable claw, like a razor, on the middle toe. He doesn't bother to bite your jugular like a lion, say... no, no. He slashes at you here," he slashed the claw through the air diagonally, just above the boy's chest, "or here," downwards, from his abdomen to his thigh. As he bent at the waist to become eye-level with the boy, Ellie shook her head and muttered 'oh, Alan' under her breath. Alan then slowly drew the claw through the air by the boy's stomach. "Or maybe across the belly, spilling your intestines. The point is... you are alive when they start to eat you. So you know... try to show a little respect."

The boy nodded, meeting Alan's gaze. "Okay."

Alan offered him a smile that was filled with amusement before slipping the claw back into his pocket as he walked away. That speech, that overly descriptive, bloody, realistic story, was exactly how he'd always talked to Gwyn. Most of her bed-time stories followed that description in some sort of capacity, helped along with little dinosaur toys and growling sound effects. She never cowered away or asked him to stop; she even became accustomed to correct what her father said if she thought it was wrong. And, sometimes he purposely said something wrong to see if she'd pick up on it… more often than not, she did. The boy stood wide-eyed, mind filled with gory, panic inducing images. While Ellie made to follow Alan, Gwyn simply smiled and flipped her notebook shut, hopping off the supply crate. Jared, who was smirking to himself, nodded at her as he tapped away at the keys.

"He ever talk to you like that?" he asked with a chuckle, feeling like he knew the answer. Gwyn smiled and replied as she backed up with jaunty little steps.

"Only always!"

Ellie and Alan were climbing their way back up the hill as Ellie commented that, if Alan wanted to scare the boy, he should've just pulled a gun on him. Alan chuckled at the thought then shook his head. His knowledge of dinosaurs could be called his weapon, he supposed.

"Kids…" Alan sighed. He chuckled and shook his head. "And you say you want kids."

"I don't want that kid, but a breed of child, Dr. Grant, could be intriguing," Ellie laughed, gesturing about with her hands. "I mean, what's so wrong with kids? You're a father, that's not exactly the kind of attitude father's have––let alone you. You love Gwyn with everything you've got."

"Oh, Ellie, look, they're… noisy, they're messy, they're expensive," Alan listed off, ticking the list off on his fingers with the brim of his hat. Ellie shook her head and whacked his arm playfully

"Cheap, cheap… Alan, you're a dad!"

Ellie had pulled the card she always used whenever this conversation popped up. Alan smiled and fiddled around with his hat as they climbed the hill. He had never actually planned or intended on being a father; Gwyn had been a complete and utter surprise, but a lovely, beautiful surprise nonetheless. He loved her something fierce, though he did find it difficult to find ways to express it besides just saying it. Kids weren't his strong suit, as had just been demonstrated, and he had a bluntness to the way he spoke that many wouldn't find quite fatherly. But he had raised Gwyn on his own, and she had grown to love and expect the way he spoke and explained things. At times it was hard since he didn't know how to be a parent, let alone a single parent, but no one could exactly say he'd done a bad job.

"Yes, I am; and I love Gwyn dearly and deeply, but she was noisy, messy, and continues to be expensive. Though I will admit she was considerably less noisy and messy than other children." He smiled to himself and knocked his hat against thigh a few times. "I raised her right. Oh––and kids smell," he added on as an after thought.

"They do not smell!" Ellie laughed, bending at the waist.

"Some of them smell! Babies smell!" Alan retorted, pointing at the blond haired woman. "Take it from me, who has raised a child from infancy––babies smell…"

Afterword: Well, would ya look at that? Actually posted this baby. Like I said in the A/N of This Damnable Place, I'm gonna post chapters to this story as they come, without much of a regular schedule (not like I actually have one of those for any of my other stories :P). But, I'm loving writing this so much that it'll probably be updated fairly frequently! I've got the first few chapters written for this already and I'm love, love, loving this.

Also, I'm not a paleontologist, so don't take my word as gospel on paleontology practices. I should probably read a book on paleontology… make this all more realistic, ahahah!

Thank you to all of you who have taken the time to read this! I hope you all have a lovely day!

~Mary