Author's note: You guys still here? I'm doing my best not to disappear.

Also, this story has finally crossed the 100k mark, so... Wooohoo! :))

"So come to me my love
I'll tap into your strength and drain it dry..."
My Medea by Vienna Teng

"You can't have it all, Claire," Karen noted.

"Says who?" Claire asked, an eyebrow arched.

"Logic. Common sense."

"It's not as common as you think," she pointed out with a scoff.

But she did want it all. And she knew she could have it. Not her sister's all, perhaps, she thought. Not a house with a picket fence in the suburbs and two perfect kids. That was too much.

Claire glanced at Karen feeding carrot puree to a six-month old Gray who seemed to be determined to leave most of it on his mother's hair. She wanted to go far and fast, wanted her life to be a whirlwind of achievements, each of them being a new beginning of something else.

Back then, sky was the limit, and even that didn't seem like something that could stop her. She didn't doubt herself once.

"My point is," Karen continued, "that you can't keep running away your whole life."

"Not away but towards," Claire countered.

"Towards what?" Karen tilted her hear quizzically, and added when her sister didn't respond, "Thought so."

xoox

Gray asked her to come to his end-of –the-school-year science fair. A couple of weeks ago, after he and Zach caught her in Owen's house, he called her and invited them both to the fair and his 6th grade graduation. Of course, she said without even thinking, really and truly meaning it. God knew, she'd missed enough already.

Claire even ordered a gift for him – a special edition of his favourite book series, signed by the author. It was so easy to imagine Karen shaking her head at the gesture as Claire pressed 'Confirm', a small smile tugging at the corners of her lips. Her sister might call it spoiling but Claire viewed it as finally trying to be a part of the boys' lives. She wanted to be a cool aunt. The one that makes her nephews happy instead of setting a murder machine loose on them. She still needed to bring this up with Owen, but she kept forgetting about it, only remembering Gray's request at the most inconvenient times.

Like when she was staring at the rows of razor-sharp teeth of a hybrid who was staring back at her, its eyes two narrow slits, its breath deliberately slow as if it was still trying to conceal itself, make itself invisible. Its skin was grey with brown stripes running from its ears, down its neck and along its sides. Its fingers with long talons were flexing ever so slightly as though it couldn't wait to sink them into something, someone….

Claire inhaled sharply, her breath catching in her throat, her whole body feeling stiff and numb, her mind suddenly empty. She couldn't tear her gaze away from those teeth, from the smears of blood on the beast's snout.

"Don't move," Alan mouthed almost soundlessly.

Not a problem, Claire thought as the hybrid stepped into the clearing, sniffing the air.

They were standing right in the middle of Owen's front lawn, between the bungalow and her car parked in the shade of palm trees. If they made a beeline for the house, the animal would intercept with them before they reached the door. If they ran for the car, it would mean turning their backs to it and god only knew how fast it was. Did she lock it? Claire wondered rather absently, more as an afterthought than an actual concern.

Everything that led them to this moment started with Claire underestimating one of these animals the first time around. She could barely believe now how stupid and blind she was, how far she allowed the situation to get before finally seeing things for what they were. Now, she was not going to make this mistake again. Assuming that this hybrid was not fast enough, or not smart enough, or not something else enough would be the death of them.

Beside her, Alan slowly shrugged his tranq rifle off his shoulder and raised it up, the barrel pointing at the dinosaur.

Claire stilled, freezing in a spot as she watched the animal take one step toward them and then another. It was like it knew they had nowhere to go and there was no need to rush and ruin the moment. In the back of her mind, she was certain this was what a mouse felt when a cat was playing with it – fear and futility of trying to escape.

Alan's gun went off with a soft click, but the dart bounced off the animal's skin without leaving so much as a scratch. What it did manage to do was enrage it. The dinosaur charged for them with a roar, the ground trembling under its heavy footfalls, reverberating through Claire's body and making the hair at the nape of her neck stand on end.

Alan pushed her aside and jumped in the opposite direction as she stumbled on the uneven ground and tumbled into the picnic table, sharp pain shooting through her shoulder on impact. She landed on her knees, turned and scooted back, and then scrambled awkwardly to her feet. The animal chose to go after Dr. Grant and not her, and she saw it reach for him with its claws. A splatter of blood landed on the glass in a graceful arc, its heavy metal smell filling the air. Alan hit the dinosaur in the snout with the stock of his rifle, trying to keep its teeth away from his skin.

And then something rushed out of the forest with a high-pitched warning screech, bumping straight into the hybrid, both of them rolling away from the man in a knot of teeth and tails.

Claire pressed a hand to her mouth, blood hammering fast in her temples. There was a gun in her car and another one in the bungalow, and she could…

The animals fell apart and were now crouching and circling one another, their teeth snapping, their breaths coming out in angry labored puffs.

It took her a moment to recognize the familiar blue stripes running from the eyes of the second dinosaur and along its body, and then another one to notice a black camera strapped to its head. As if on cue, Blue turned and looked at Claire, her head tilted in confusion, her nostrils moving ever so slightly as she sniffed the air.

"Stay quiet," Alan warned her, remaining perfectly still on the ground.

They were dead, Claire thought as her heart sank down into her stomach. She did as he said though, resisting the urge to turn and see how he was doing. But instead of attacking either one of them, Blue tuned her back to Claire again, stepping firmly between her and the other dinosaur, her eyes narrowed dangerously. She was smaller, more lithe, less stocky, but somehow more fierce and wild. More deadly.

Claire took a cautious step back, and then another one. And then the heel of her boot hit a thick root protruding from the earth, and she lost her balance, her back hitting the tree, all air knocked out of her lungs. She slid down to the ground, rough bark scratching her skin even through her shirt. Her heart lodged itself in her throat as the hybrid span around, its unblinking eyes fixed on the prey.

It wagged its tail as it stepped toward Claire, its movements slow and almost taunting as if it was trying to figure out the most elaborate way to rip her apart. Behind it, Blue let out an angry cluck and sprung forward, her teeth sinking into the other animal's shoulder, but a moment later she was tossed aside like a rag doll, and the next thing Claire knew there were teeth coming at her, for her.

And then a gunshot, so loud it tuned out the rest of the world.

And then nothing.

Her ears still ringing, Claire stared at the motionless body of a hybrid sprawled on the grass before her, its head practically nonexistent, blown away by the bullet. The air around them smelled strongly of smoke and blood, and her heart was fluttering so fast in her chest she couldn't breathe.

"Claire!"

Owen lowered his rifle and slung it over his shoulder, then propped his bike up on its kickstand and sprinted toward her across the clearing, pausing only to help Alan up but the latter only waved him off, hauling himself up on his own. At the sound of her name, Claire whipped her head around. There were droplets of blood on her cheek, and his stomach twisted, his gaze taking her in in search for any injuries, trying to see if she was hurt—

Claire leaped up to her feet before he reached her, barreling into him when he closed the distance between them, her whole body shaking. In the midst of this madness, she didn't even hear his bike.

"Hey," Owen muttered into her hair as his arms locked around her, the leather hooked to his rifle digging into his chest. He was somewhat aware of the other vehicles arriving, of the people running past them, shouting brisk orders, a crowd gathering around the mangled body of the hybrid, the air abuzz with tension. Someone hurried over to Alan's side. Barry was speaking into his radio. It was hard to make sense of any of this. "You okay?" He asked quietly. Claire nodded numbly and turned to look at the dead animal over her shoulder, bunching fistfuls of his shirt with her fingers. "Hurt?"

"No," she said through a shuddered breath.

He pulled back just far enough away to look in her her face. "You've got…"

She brushed her palm to her cheek, surprised to find red stains on her fingers. "Not mine." She shook her head.

Owen smoothed down her hair. "Let's get you out of here, okay?"

She glanced past him. "What about…"

"ACU will take care of this."

"No, I mean…" she scanned a semicircle of the jungle hugging the lawn in front of the bungalow.

Blue.

Owen's jaw tightened as he stepped back, his hand siding down Claire's arm, fingers weaving through hers. Eyes narrowed slightly, he peered into the greenery where the raptor was seen last, spooked by the gunshot, trying to catch any movement in the ferns, and then puffed out a breath.

"She's got an implant. We'll find her later," he said, tuning to Claire, still visibly torn. Yes, they were on the island. Yes, she had nowhere to go. It didn't really change anything though. If she wasn't where she was supposed to be, his instinct was to go looking for her. Plain and simple.

"Look, if you want to-" Claire began, not any less conflicted.

"Later," he shook his head and pressed a quick kiss to her temple, feeling weak in the knees from the adrenaline rush that started to wane slowly. "Let's go."

xoox

ACU took the decapitated corpse of the dinosaur to the lab - so that they could run tests on it and, as Alan put it, crack its DNA code, see if they could figure out what it'd been made of. He seriously doubted they'd succeed – doubted anyone aside from Wu could have all the answers, but it was worth a shot. He was adamant to join them – now that the threat was gone, his curiosity spiked, his mind racing ahead.

The cut on his forearm was bleeding pretty badly though, and the make-shift bandage he secured around it wasn't enough.

Claire steered him toward one of the jeeps while Owen exchanged a few quick and intense words with Harris and Barry, all of them looking a bit more concerned for her liking, especially considering that everything was over at last and they could finally stop holding their breaths waiting for another shoe to drop. However, she was somewhat relived to note that no one seemed to be keen on throwing punches, but it felt more like calm before the storm than actual truce.

Afterwards, they drove back to the resort, Owen's hand clasping Claire's even though he barely glanced away from the road stretching ahead of them, gripping the wheel so tight it seemed like it was about to snap. Alan sat in the back, also staring pensively out the window, his wounded arm cradled to his chest. The conversation stalled, and after receiving nothing but a couple of noncommittal grunts from both of them, Claire sunk back into her seat and tried to push the images of what just happened out of her mind - without much success – somewhat soothed by the slow circles Owen's thumb was rubbing into her knuckles.

She squeezed his hand, and he glanced at her quickly before bringing her hand up and kissing her fingers. "It's over."

It didn't feel like it.

"Well, that was… something else," Alan breathed out in disbelief.

"Can I ask you something… personal?" Claire dropped her voice and focused on pressing a towel to the deep gash on his forearm as they waited for the medic to make it back to the first aid station near the Hilton

He grimaced a little, although she couldn't tell if it was her question or the fact that his arm nearly got ripped off not an hour ago that caused it. Maybe both. "I'm tempted to say no, but I'm curious."

Claire let out a long breath and sucked in her lips for a moment, suddenly uncertain and embarrassed. She flicked a surreptitious look at Owen who was talking to someone on the radio in the corridor, his face grave and grim. "You and Dr. Sattler… I know what happened between the two of you."

Alan's lips quirked a little, forming into a humorless half smile. "I'm sure the whole world knows what happened between me and Ellie." And then, "And I can assure you, you and Mr. Grady are not us."

Claire cleared her throat, finally managing to secure the damned towel on his arm, and then tipped her chin up to look him in the face. "Why would you…"

He rewarded her with his usual smirk. "Was it not what you were going to ask?"

She paused. "Well, yes. Maybe." She shook her head. This conversation didn't seem quite as ridiculous in her head. "I guess what I wanted to ask… Do you think it didn't work out between you two because of what happened here? I mean…."

Alan let out a wistful sigh. "It didn't work out because, much like John Hammond, Ellie and I wanted it all and we wanted it at once. But it turned out that our all was fundamentally different." He turned to Claire. "She wanted more than I could give her. It was just that."

She studied him for a long moment. "Do you ever regret that it ended that way?"

Alan glanced past her shoulder, and when Claire followed his gaze, she saw a medic walk right past Owen, heading their way. He was called back from a field operation, although she couldn't quite decide whether he looked happy to be pulled out of having to be an assistant to a vet and actually deal with people or not. Wasn't sure how'd she feel about it either, had she been in his position.

"Every day of my life," Alan muttered under his breath.

xoox

Heavy clouds pulled over their heads and the sky opened up all of the sudden mere minutes before they made it to the Hilton, drenching Owen, Claire, Alan and their staff medic to the bones. Owen shook his head like a dog that just climbed out of the water, and Claire grimaced at the sight of puddles they were leaving on the marble floor.

In the past hour, while she washed the grime and blood off her own skin, Alan's wounds had been taken care of properly. She was determined to send him back to the mainland first thing in the morning to have him properly examined at the hospital. He tried to protest, his curiosity over the discovery of a new animal taking over his precaution, but Claire wouldn't have any of it. She was not going to take any more chances, and there must have been something about her voice that told him to stop arguing. He still requested the lab reports to be sent to him and she agreed, if a little reluctantly.

Owen smartly stayed out of this conversation.

In the foyer of the Hilton, they found Barry talking to another member of the ACU team.

Katherine Marshall was sitting on the leather couch in a state of mild shock with her hands clasped between her knees, staring vacantly at the coffee table. There were cuts on her arms and smears on blood on her face and her clothes were smudged with dirt, but otherwise she looked more or less unharmed. If she weren't, they'd have brought her to the first aid station, Claire thought as she marched up across the lobby toward what used to be a waiting area for the guests.

Earlier, Owen explained to her that they found her in the woods, hiding in the ravine, while they were following the signal coming from Blue's tracker. The body of her colleague, shredded into spaghetti, was discarded nearby.

Barry and another man looked up at the sound of her footsteps.

"What the hell do you think you were doing?" Claire snapped, overcome with anger – at Wu for making the goddamned thing that killed and maimed people today, at Katherine Marshall for being here, at the man she brought with her for dying, at the headache pulsing behind her eyes, at the whole world that couldn't give her a break for one fucking day.

Kathrine looked up slowly, her eyes puffy and glazed over, her lips trembling.

"He's… Jason…. He's dead," she muttered in bewilderment as if the thought hadn't quite registered with her yet. And then she dropped her head in her palms and burst into tears, her shoulders shaking with every convulsive sob.

Claire pinched the bridge of her nose, willing her headache away, and exhaled slowly.

"Well, what did you expect when you left the resort and marched into the forest?" She asked firmly, unkindly.

A part of her was guilty about speaking like this to a traumatized woman, especially when she knew firsthand what it was like to go through something that horrendous. But at the same time, she was sick and tired of babysitting someone who should have known better than being this stupid. No one was safe or invincible on this island. And now it was her fault, again. Because she didn't lock them up and ship them off first chance she had. And, if she were honest with herself, Claire couldn't bear being blamed for the other people's poor decisions any longer.

"He told us there'd be…" Katherine tried to take a breath but her words came out all jumbled up and unintelligible. "There'd be… what he promised… there."

Claire dropped her hand, feeling dizzy by the moment. "Who?"

Even the air seemed to go completely still around them.

Katherine sniffled. "Greg Caldwell. He said we'd get exclusive material if we keep it quiet and do as he said."

xoox

"It makes sense," Claire admitted, her voice miserable. She pushed the door to her suite open and turning on the light. "He's running the company now, he has the access to… everything. He's got…"

She stopped and turned to Owen who locked the door behind them and was watching her wearily.

From the information she managed to pry out of Katherine, Claire found out that Greg Caldwell contacted her a couple of weeks ago and offered her a trip to the island, claiming it was easier to have one person know the truth than fend off a few dozen speculating about whatever wild fantasies the public came up with.

This morning, he called her again and told her to leave the resort and head east, which she and Jason did. They didn't have a problem sneaking out, seeing as how most of the team was at the raptors' paddock and no one was interested in looking after them – they weren't the tourists and, as far as everyone was concerned, they were supposed to know what they were doing. According to Katherine, they made it to the outskirts of what used to be a Pachy enclosure, currently vacant, when something jumped out of the trees, and the next thing she knew, she basically flew up a tree while the animal attacked Jason Moore, her camera man of three years.

The rest of the story was barely comprehensible. How she ended up on the ground again, she couldn't recall.

Claire wanted to give it another try in the morning before she and Alan Grant were taken to the mainland, hoping the shock would wear off a little. Maybe learn more about Caldwell's involvement.

"Not gonna wear off that soon," Owen noted, resting his rifle against the wall and rolling his shoulders to shake off some of the tension.

"You know what I mean," she responded tiredly, wondering if it was going to wear off at all. Probably not anytime soon.

"Yeah, I do."

"He knew that… this creature would be there. And he sent them there," Claire said, still dumbfounded, and rubbed her forehead, her mind reeling.

Owen's gaze hardened, his jaw twitching. "Son of a bitch set them up. Set you up, too."

She ran a hand through her hair, grimacing. "But why?"

"Don't you get it? Whatever happens here – it's on you. I mean, it's easy, right? You already don't have much reputation left to-"

"Thanks," she snorted dryly, crossing her arms over her chest.

"You know what I mean," he tossed her own words back at her. "And what's better way to bury your newly established credibility than to get someone else killed on your watch?"

"You think he knows I'm trying to find out what's going on here," she finished for him and bit into her lip. It wasn't a question.

Owen shrugged. "Sounds about right."

"Which means we're getting close."

Claire walked over to the fridge and pulled out a bottled of wine, and then reached for the glass, trying to remember where she kept Tylenol. Her head felt like it was going to explode any moment.

"Which means we're not getting any further," he stated, determined and firm.

She turned to him, her eyebrows knitted together. "Meaning…?"

Owen glowered at her as she poured the wine and took a sip, his chin set stubbornly. "You're leaving with Grant and that nosy lady who nearly got her head bitten off. Sounds familiar? Something you two can bond over, huh?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You're not staying here, Claire."

Her eyes narrowed. "Excuse me, could you repeat that again? Because it sounded like you were trying to tell me what to do."

"You could have died today!" He yelled, surprising them both and rendering them speechless for a moment, the silence that settled around them so sudden it felt deafening.

Claire leveled him with a steady gaze. "I know. I was there when it almost happened."

He threw up his hands and turned away, sharking his head in helpless frustration. "Today, or any other day in this godforsaken place. Which risk do you think will be one risk too many?"

She crossed her arms over her chest. "Is this the right time to remind you it was your idea to come here?"

"For me, not for you."

"Well, I'm sorry for derailing your plans."

"Claire…"

"What about you?" She interjected. "We're leaving together, right?"

He flinched, visibly pained.

"Of course!" Claire rolled her eyes. "You just want to ship me off."

"I don't want to-" Owen ran a hand through his hair and then turned on his heel and pointed an accusatory finger at her. "You know what? That's not fair! I stand by your decisions whenever you need me to, no questions asked, but you can't trust me this one time-"

"You're asking me to walk away and leave you behind!" She snapped, placing her glass on the side table near the couch, a few drops spilling on the polished surface.

"I'm asking you to stay alive! Since when did you become such a hypocrite?"

Her eyes widened, mouth dropping open in shock. "I'm a hypocrite?! And who spent almost a week at the hospital, Owen? I'm not the one who needed a blood transfusion in the past month."

"You don't have to be so dramatic. And it's not the point anyway," he stated defensively.

"How's that not the point? What makes your safety less important than mine?"

"Because I can't lose you!" Owen barked sharply, and then walked off, leaning heavily on the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room, his reflection distorted in its smooth surface, which felt oddly accurate.

He sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly, barely able to hear anything past the blood rush in his ears. He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling scared and desperate and so tired that even thinking felt like too much effort. So exhausted and world-weary it was driving him mad.

He didn't hear Claire approach so much as feel it – the slight stir of the air around him, his skin tingling from her nearness, the instinctive response of his body that didn't get the memo about having to be angry. He stiffed momentarily when she slipped her hand into his, and then relaxed slowly as she pressed her forehead into his shoulder, allowing his muscles to slacken.

"I'm scared too," she murmured into the fabric of his shirt, her breath hot on his skin. "But I'm more scared without you."

When Owen turned to her again, his face was lined with worry and powerless resignation. Like he could no longer carry the weight of the world all by himself.

She lifted her hand to trace her fingertips along his face, smooth the crease between his eyebrows with her thumb before pulling up on her tiptoes to brush her lips to his.

"Claire…"

"Please," she whispered, allowing her eyes to flutter closed, trailing her mouth along his cheek down to his jaw, kissing the place where his dimple popped up every time he smiled. "I need… this. You." Her hand slipped around his neck, fingers burying in his hair.

A brief pause, a slight hesitation, a moment to shift from one realm to another, and then he turned to her, following her call, kissing her hard, his hands framing her face, his lips firm and demanding, stealing Claire's breath away. Now, she thought as deep, consuming need zinged through her, her awareness tunneling until the whole world zeroed in on her and Owen, everything else fading away.

At six foot two, Owen was made of taut muscles and majestic grace, the strength radiating off of him was often almost palpable, something Claire felt wrapped around her like a shield whenever he was near. A jolt of intense pleasure zapped through her, pushing everything else back, out of her reach. She heard a low groan, realizing only moments later that it came from her as Owen pulled her against him, his hands, his mouth seemingly everywhere at once.

"Scared me," he muttered gruffly against her mouth.

"I'm sorry." She shivered under his touch, struggling to think straight, her perception scattered.

They stumbled toward the bedroom, her hands slipping under his shirt, lifting and tugging and pushing until it was no longer an unwanted barrier between her and his skin. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was vaguely aware of the sound of their clothes tearing at the seams as they shed them off, hasty and impatient to vanish in the sheer joy of filling one another.

Claire moaned and pressed herself closed to him when Owen lowered her down, spreading her on her sheets, his hands and lips searching, teasing, tasting, claiming. Her throat closed up, honey-soft warmth blossoming in her belly like a glow until it devoured her whole. She arched her back, pulling him over her and taking him in on a long slide.

The first exquisite plunge into her was pure bliss, the sensation searing through him, making his nerves feel raw and exposed. She gasped, the sound morphing into a low whimper of acceptance, and he pressed his mouth to hers, swallowing it, allowing it to pulse through him. He tended to hold back with her, keeping his urges at bay, but the happiness and relief mixed with overwhelming fear of the past few hours washed over him, taking over his senses, throwing him into a whirlpool of wanting.

"God, Claire..."

She rose beneath him, coaxing his hips into motion, settling them into a steady rock, her nails scraping is back, leaving the marks Owen knew would take days to fade away. He caught her wrist and pressed her arm into the pillow over her head, their fingers laced together, a stretch adding a new angle eliciting a low grunt of satisfaction from him. His mouth latched onto her neck, and Claire's eyes dropped closed, her breathing growing more erratic with every moment, her grip on him urgent and almost panicky as she drew him deeper. So, so good.

He cupped her breast with his palm, earning a needy whimper, tempted to retread to a slower pace just to tease her and keep her on the brink for a while longer, but her eyes flew wide open then, pupils blown with desire. The green of her gaze steadied him, holding him together and pulling him apart all at once, and his heart tripped over itself, his whole body aching with primal yearning to dissolve into her. Her hand splayed on his chest, Claire nipped his bottom lip in encouragement, and he trailed his fingers along her ribs and up her thigh, pressing it into his hip, drowning in sweet friction and completeness.

Another push, and her body stilled beneath him, his name falling from her lips in an outcry of ecstatic delight, waves of pleasure rippling through her. One more, and he was falling into a bright kaleidoscope of golden elation, alive and whole and present.

"You okay?" Owen pressed his forehead to hers, his awareness still blurred, save for the sensation of her body wound around him.

"Mmm," Claire bumped her nose against his and giggled, the sound like sunshine. "Don't go," she murmured when he shifted, her arms snaking around his neck.

"Don't want to crush you."

Owen collapsed into the sheets beside her, deliciously spent, and when she turned her head, he was right there, kissing her slowly and sweetly, his palm on her cheek, his fingers braiding through her hair. He smiled against her mouth, feeling Claire smile too; trailed his fingers along her face and pulled her closer to him.

"That was…" he started.

"Yeah," she breathed out, her hand pressed to his chest, his heartbeat a rapid staccato under her palm.

"Yeah," he echoed.

"Can we do it again?" Claire asked in a soft murmur.

A low, guttural laughter rumbled up in his chest. Owen pressed his lips her shoulder, her collarbone, trailed his mouth down her chest, between her breasts, his quest punctuated with slow kisses, until finally he rested his head on her stomach, his cheek pressed to her belly and his arms wrapped possessively around her hips.

"As many times as you want," he promised her with a cheeky grin, and she smirked, running her hand through his hair slightly damp with sweat.

Claire exhaled slowly, waiting for her heartrate to get back to normal, for the world to stop spinning around her, her whole body still buzzing, electrified.

Sometimes, she felt like it was all she needed – just moments like this, crammed together, as many as she could fit in her life. Other times, she feared her heart would burst from feeling too much and too fully. It scared her – the completeness of them, her inability to remember the time when she would roll over in her sleep and Owen wouldn't be there, the sensation of feeling so much more alive than ever before.

"Have you thought of what's going to happen next?" She asked quietly, absently carding her fingers through his hair that felt soft and smooth against her skin.

Owen rubbed his cheek against her stomach, his beard tickling her silky skin. "Mmm," he hummed, kissed her hipbone. "I kinda like the next we have now."

Claire snorted, and his lips stretch into a smile. He could practically feel her roll her eyes, his arms flexing to tighten his grip on her.

"Not that next," she pointed out in that patient voice that normally meant she was anything but. "After… we're done here. When all of this is over. This island. Everything…" she trailed off.

"Not really," Owen admitted after a long moment, not quite ready for the direction in which this conversation was heading. Not when he was feeling so damn good. Claire's breathing had evened out, her belly rising and falling slowly under his cheek, soothing and present. He closed his eyes, breathing in her scent. "I'll go wherever you will go."

She didn't say anything for a little while.

Outside the open window, the trees were swaying in the night breeze, the rustle of the leaves carried off into the ocean. Somewhere in the forest, an animal cried out and moments later, another one responded, the sounds blending in together and echoing in the hills.

These sounds had become such a enormous part of Owen's life he often strained to hear them while lying wide awake at night in San Diego as Claire slept sounds by his side. It unnerved and unsettled him to hear the traffic noises and the voices of their neighbors and the occasional lapping of the waves against the sand when everything else was quiet. Like it wasn't enough.

Yes, he knew there was supposed to be life after the island, but he didn't really know it, didn't think of it past the abstract 'probably, maybe'. But now that it was looming on the horizon, it looked less like a new start and more like a big black nothing. The only sure thing about it was that Claire was there. Hell, Claire was it. All of it, for all he cared.

"Maybe you shouldn't," she said when Owen began to drift off, his mind fuzzy and soft around the edges.

"Come again?" He murmured. She didn't say anything, and he lifted his head to look at her. "Claire?"

"I don't want you to throw your life away because of me."

He frowned and then scooted up and closer to her, pulling a sheet over their still heated bodies when she shivered ever so slightly in the breeze spilling into the room through the open window. In the dark, it was hard to see her eyes, impossible to read her. Owen found her hand and kissed her palm, his lips brushing against the small cuts crossing her skin, before curling his fingers around hers.

"I'm not throwing anything away," Owen said quietly, his voice nothing but a whoosh of breath. "I want to be with you. I want you." The corner of his mouth quirked as he pushed her hair back from her forehead and she sank comfortably into him, her body relaxing against his. "You're my girl."

Claire's palm landed on his chest; she rubbed her nose against his cheek. "What if it's not enough?"

"Then I'll get myself a hobby and start growing tomatoes in the backyard or building bird houses or something."

"Do you even know how to build a bird house?"

"We'll just have to wait and see," he said, kissing her lightly, and then again – deeper the time. He shifted them until she was sprawled over him, her hand on the back of his neck as her tongue darting past his lips, languid and soft and real.

"Not leaving without you, Owen," she whispered against is mouth. "Can't even think about it."

"Hey." He touched her face, propping her chin on his knuckle. "I'm not going to… God, Claire, I'm not gonna make you do anything you don't want to do." He swallowed. "Can't lose you."

"Never," she promised, dropping a kiss near the corner of his mouth.

Owen ran his hands along her shoulders and down her back as she rested her head on his chest, tucking it under his chin. Sated and drowsy, she let out a long content sigh. He pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I'm really gonna hold you to that."

xoox

Claire awoke to the sound of the rain pounding furiously against the glass. She squeezed her eyes tight and buried her face deeper into the pillow in an attempt to snag a few more precious moments of peace and comfort, disconnected from the troubles of the day.

She stretched lazily, leaching blindly for the other side of the bed, and then opened one eye and then another when her hand landed on an empty pillow, her nose scrunched in confusion. And it was then that it dawned on her that the room was filled with sunlight shining through the thin curtains and the sound that pulled her out of a dream she could no longer recall was coming not from the outside but from behind the half-open bathroom door and was, in fact, her shower.

Lips curved into a small smile, Claire kicked off the covers and climbed out of the bed. She twisted her hair into a sloppy bun on the top of her head and pulled off Owen's shirt she slept in, leaving it draped over the back of her vanity chair. The bathroom, so much unlike Owen's only-shower-no-bathtub tiny one, was filled with heavy steam.

Behind the fogged up glass, Owen was humming something under his breath, his face turned up to the spray of water.

She stepped into the cubicle and place a hand on his hip. "Need a company?"

Owen turned, the wattage of his smile skyrocketing by the second. "Hey." A palm on her cheek, he lifted her chin up to kiss her. "Didn't mean to wake you."

"You didn't."

"Thought you wanted to sleep in."

"And miss all the fun?" An eyebrow arched, Claire shifted her gaze to his mouth, her bottom lip caught between her teeth, trying to bite back a smile.

Owen flicked some water in her face and laughed when her mouth dropped in mock shock. "Having fun yet?"

"Don't get my hair wet," she warned him in a tone that implied she meant business.

He moved closer to her and ran a soapy sponge up her arm and down her chest so tenderly it made Claire's heart ache. Oh, sex was great, beyond great even – she could admit that much. But it was the in-between moments like this one that truly took her breath away, moments when he managed to make her feel like the most wanted and treasured and precious person in existence. She wondered sometimes if he even knew it, if he had any idea how he was making her glow on the inside.

Owen booped her on the nose, leaving a glob of bubbles on her skin. Claire blew it off with a huff and he dipped his head to kiss her again, still smiling.

"You're not angry anymore, are you?" She asked quietly against his chest, peppering it with soft kisses.

He furrowed his eyebrows, lost momentarily, the change of subject so unexpected he wondered if she started this conversation long before he became a part of it, always racing ahead of the world. And then he exhaled slowly, the tight tension in his chest uncoiling.

"I wasn't mad, Claire—I mean, I was." A tight-lipped growl of frustration. "You were going to march into the forest on a rescue mission, all by yourself!"

"With Dr. Grant," she countered immediately. "And I tried calling you."

"Not the point-"

"Exactly the point, Owen," she rolled her eyes like he was a petulant five-year old having a tantrum in a toy store. "Like you wouldn't do the exact same thing."

Owen grimaced. He hated it when she was right, and she was always right. Being right was Claire's thing, wasn't it? Like being impulsive on occasion was his. Or like being crazy about her.

"It's not the same thing," he protested nonetheless, out of sheer stubbornness more than anything else.

"How?" She tilted her head to the side, her voice dangerously calm, and he knew straight away that he was walking on thin ice. One wrong word, and he'd be under it and drowning in frigid water.

"I wasn't mad," he insisted. "I was terrified." She didn't say anything, and he added, "Always am, you know?" Owen tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "What if something happened to you? Never not scared of that…"

Claire stretched up on her toes and pressed her face into his neck, wrapped in a cloud of steam and soft scents of his skin and her floral shampoo. "Ditto, Mr. Grady."

"Ditto?" He chuckled, running a sponge down her back and along her waist, dipping his head to kiss her on the sensitive spot behind her ear. "I've never heard you say ditto. Didn't know you knew the word." She tried to swat him off with mock-annoyance, but Owen caught her hand, kissed her fingers, his eyes, sparkling with humor, locked with hers.

And then her face fell.

"What's this?" Claire frowned, spotting a bite-mark on his shoulder – two pink semi-circles prominent on his skin.

His eyebrows shot up all the way to his hairline. "You tell me."

"I did it?" She pressed her lips to the sore spot and murmured, "Sorry."

"Don't be. It's hardly something I'd ever complain about."

Their own kind of branding, he thought, as she kissed her way across his collarbone and up his neck, seemingly no longer concerned about keeping her hair dry. It was funny, really, the way Owen could feel her these days. The way he could sense her presence across the room, sense the shifts in her, the changing patterns of her mood.

When she was this close, though, it felt less like a presence and more like knowing that a part of him he didn't even know was missing had finally found its way back to him. On the moments like this, it was hard to resist the urge to wrap his whole body around her and never let go.

Somewhere in the bedroom, Owen's phone let out a protesting shrill, giving them both a start, and he pulled back with a groan, glancing over Claire's head.

"And that's my cue," he grimaced.

"Where're you going?" She asked.

"Gotta find Blue."

"Do you have to?" She glanced down pointedly and then met his gaze again, a coy glint in her eyes.

He let out a short laugh and cupped her face with his palm, capturing her mouth with his again. "You're turning it into a very hard decision," Owen admitted. "No pun intended."

"Maybe I could change your mind," she offered suggestively.

His phone started to ring again.

"Wouldn't want to rush with that." He pecked her on the tip on her nose. "Raincheck?"

She shook her head, amused. "Sure."

Owen rinsed the sponge and turned off the water that went from almost scalding to tepid before stepping out of the cubicle. "You need a lift anywhere?"

He fixed a towel around his waist before wrapping Claire in another one, trying oh so hard not to think of the water drops gathered on her skin and how he'd much rather toss his phone into the toilet and spend the next few hours kissing them away.

"Wait, you're not going to try and keep me locked up here or something?" She quirked an eyebrow at him, turning to the mirror over the sink.

"What good would it do me?" He deadpanned with flat resignation, earning a toothy grin from her. And then his brows pulled together in concern. "I didn't do this, did I?" He stepped toward her, his fingers skimming gently over her back.

"What?" Claire craned her neck to see what he was looking at, and then half-turned to try and catch a reflection of her back when Plan A went out the window.

The was a purple bruise on her shoulder-blade about an inch in diameter, tender to the touch now that she knew it was there. "No, that was your picnic table," she said after a moment or two of a thorough mental search. "I knew it didn't like me."

Behind her, Owen let out a sharp exhale before wrapping his arm across Claire's chest and pulling her against him, their eyes locked in the mirror. "I mean, we do some fun stuff sometimes, but I wouldn't want to hurt you."

"You haven't," she assured him, the corners of her lips tugged up, curved into a soft smile. "What?" She asked, catching Owen watch her with an odd, unreadable expression. Her eyes narrowed.

"It's funny, you know," he said with a slight bewilderment. "I still wake up in the middle of the night sometimes thinking that all of this isn't real. That you and I…." His voice trailed off. "You're a pain in the ass, sometimes," Owen pressed his lips to her hair, ignoring Claire's half-hearted attempt to elbow him in the ribs. "But you're all I need. And if this whole world went straight to hell tomorrow, I know I'd still be okay so long as you were with me."

"Well, wasn't it-"

Claire's phone chimed, announcing arrival of a voicemail, and Owen rolled his eyes with exasperation. "Aw, come on! I'm trying to be poetic here!"

"Who told you that calling a girl a pain in the ass is poetic?" She inquired, half curious, half incredulous.

He chuckled, locking both arms around her when she made an attempt to move away, his chin resting on the top of her head and his lips twisted into a cheeky smirk. "I'm a pain in the ass, too. We make a fine match."

Claire wiggled around to face him. "Don't you have a dinosaur to catch?"

Owen studied her features. "Remember how when you were a kid, you thought that when you grew up, you'd do whatever you wanted instead of, I don't know, dealing with the curfew and eating vegetables for dinner?"

"Uh-huh," Claire nodded, clasping her hands together behind his back.

"Where did that dream go?"

"Hm… wouldn't you get bored if you could get everything you wanted whenever you wanted it?"

"You're kidding me now, right?"

He kissed her quickly, cut her mid-laughter, and then steered her into the bedroom to get dressed.

There were two missed calls and a message from Barry on his phone – something vague but urgent. He slipped into French half-way through, and Owen couldn't quite decide if he was talking about an omelet or his laundry, and the fact that voicemail normally tended to make everything sound gargled wasn't helping the matter.

He didn't even realize until this moment that he was practically holding his breath for the past few days. It wasn't over yet, far from it, but knowing that the new dinosaur was no longer an issue on the island left him with such a tremendous sense of relief he could almost feel he was about to soar into the sky.

Barry didn't pick up when Owen tried calling back so he simply left a message, promising to get over to the Control Room as soon as he could. By the time Claire emerged from the bedroom with her phone squeezed between her shoulder and her ear, he had the coffee machine running and was rummaging through the thinning contents of her fridge.

"We might need to do some shopping," he pointed out when she hung up and reached for his coffee mug.

"As in, we need to go to the mainland, or we need to go into the jungle and shoot something?" She asked, watching him over the rim of the cup.

"Either." Owen pushed a plate with a sandwich across the counter toward her and sank his teeth into his own.

"Why did she do it, Owen?" Claire slid onto one of the tall stools, her face pensive.

"You gotta give me some context here, honey," he mumbled around a mouthful of food.

"Blue." She gave him a look. Sometimes, when she did that, he was quite tempted to stick his tongue out at her. "Alan and I… we didn't stand a chance against the two of them. And yet she chose to… not to attack."

She was still holding his mug, so he grabbed another one from the cup holder and filled it to the brim. "They're not murder machines, Claire. They have instincts, yes, but they're smart, too. They can make conscious decisions. Blue grew up knowing that I was in command. She could've turned on you, but she chose not to because you're a part of the pack now."

"I thought you said she hated me," Claire noted, digging into her breakfast.

"She can hate you and still respect the fact that you're, like, second-in-command Alpha," he scoffed, making her roll her eyes at his wording. "Look, we don't know how smart they are or what they're capable of. This project was never completed, remember? Blue's barely two, and…" He shrugged. "For all I know, she's still a kid. There's no saying when they become mature and all that. For all I know, she was trying to protect whatever's left of the only family she's ever had."

Claire's expression softened. "Even if it was an evil step-mother," she finished for him.

Owen's lips quirked. "You're not so bad. Caffeine helps, usually."

She threw a bread crust at him. Owen dodged away from it and then he leaned over the counter, his face hovering barely half an inch away from hers. From this close, he could see every freckle, every golden spec in her green eyes. From this close, he could feel like he was being pulled into a whirlpool of something he couldn't even begin to explain.

"You're very good at stacking bread and cheese on top of one and other," Claire admitted.

The corner of his mouth lifted. "You should see what I can do with instant noodles."

xoox

Spinning blades of a helicopter kept whipping Claire's hair in her face. She pushed it out of her eyes, again, squinting in the sunlight.

Owen's radio crackled to life, and he waved an 'All clear' to the pilot before pulling the door shut. On the other side of the window, Alan Grant touched the brim of his hat, saluting to Claire, and she waved her goodbye.

It was near impossible to get him out of the lab this morning, his ever curious mind sparkling alive at the slightest hint of a mystery to be solved, and a brand new dinosaur, albeit a dead one, qualified as a major one. He tried to explain the preliminary lab results to Claire – something about DNA and genetic composition and all the words that she knew meant something but that sounded ridiculous and made-up – but they were inconclusive yet, considering the time frame, and she was adamant to get him off the island.

Alan assured her that his injury was minor, but it still seemed like too big a risk to ignore it. Claire promised him she'd forward all the findings straight to him as soon as they come in as she tried to ignore a mangled corpse of a killed animal on the steel table in what used to be Wu's lab, remembering if a little belatedly that it was where she, Owen and the boys found the remaining side-effects of Wu's experiments, the ones he chose to leave behind. The irony of dissecting his latest monster exactly where it all started wasn't lost on her.

Across from Alan, Kathrine Marshall was staring sightlessly out of her own window. If she had at least an hour of sleep the previous night, it wasn't showing. Claire did her best to try and talk to her before Barry loaded her bags into the chopper, but it was akin talking to a wall. Unlike Dr. Grant who seemed to have bounced back rather easily, she appeared to still be in shock, and frankly, Claire couldn't even begin to imagine what kind of shit storm they were about to face. If Kathrine Marshall so much as opened her mouth about what happened here, Caldwell might as well forget about his 5- and 10-year business plans.

Not that she cared.

The chopper took off at last after Lowery confirmed that the sky was clear. Traveling by air was hardly the safest choice on the island populated with Pteranodons. They had to be grateful for whatever window they could use.

"Grady. A minute?" Harris peeled off a group of people the moment the elevator doors slid open and Claire stepped into the Control Room with Owen right on her heels, his hair still ruffled up by the wind and sticking out in every direction.

He grimaced at the sight of Harris. "Whatever it is, can we not do it? Like, ever?"

"I'd love to," Harris admitted flatly. "But it's actually…" He cleared his throat, not looking particularly comfortable or enthusiastic.

"Okay, I should probably let you-" Claire began but Harris raised his hand to stop her.

"You might want to stick around for this, Ms. Dearing."

Claire didn't hear so much as feel Owen go rigid beside her.

Harris glanced over his shoulder and lowered his voice, his gaze fixed on Owen. "Remember that time when you totaled one of our choppers and we had to save your sorry ass?"

"If you get any more sentimental about it, I'm gonna cry," Owen scoffed. Claire shot him a warning look and he pursed his lips together.

Harris disregarded his comment. "We got the black box. I had someone give it a look."

The tone of his voice, the edge and gravity in it, made Claire's pulse trip.

"And?" Owen sounded as impatient as she felt, except there was certain wariness to him as well, like he wanted to hear the answer but was also dreading it more than anything else in the world.

"The navigation system had been tampered with." Harris squared his jaw. "It's not that there was a storm and you were hit by a lightning, or whatever. It's that the chopper would've crashed either way."

"Wait, are you seriously saying someone was trying to…" Owen voice dropped, his throat going dry. "Someone tried to kill me?"

Harris hesitated. "Anyone could be flying it that day. There's no way to tell when…"

"Gimme a break." Owen ran a hand down his face. "Everyone knew it was going to be me. It wasn't a secret."

"Yeah, well, that's not the biggest problem," Harris said.

"Wouldn't that be too good to be true?" Owen muttered darkly.

"What is the problem?" Claire asked, feeling that the floor started to swim beneath her feet.

Harris glanced quickly back at the two MCU guys chatting to Lowery by his station, his gaze skimming over the monitors on the back wall, some of them showing the vets and the InGen men busy with something or the other.

"The biggest problem is there's no way to find to who did it."

To be continued...

A/N: Please bear with me for a little while longer. There will be one more chapter and an epilogue, although I'm not sure yet if an epilogue is going to be within that chapter or a separate thing. I'll see how long it'll turn out when I'm done, I guess.

Reviews are love :) Authors live for them!

ETA: On hold until further notice