Last chapter for this one. Enjoy (and see the notes at the end!) :)

Blue slowly wakes up in her harness back in Paddock Seven as darkness falls, Owen right there next to her in the cage, and Claire watches it all from video feeds in the Control Room.

It's only her and Lowery in the darkened room. He's still fiddling with a few things, a soda and a big bag of chips at his side, and she sits sideways in a chair, her feet propped onto the workstation next to the one she's actually sitting at. Her position is casual and totally unprofessional, but she doesn't care how she looks because the employee, the friend, in the room with her has already seen her at her most unreserved, and her boyfriend, several miles away from her safe confines, is about to touch a newly restrained but confused and very angry dinosaur.

She's so nervous as Blue's eyes blink open and Owen runs over to the raptor that she thinks it might be a good thing that she's barely had time to eat today, and she wonders if this feeling, this nauseous anxiety that interacting with a dinosaur brings her, will ever again dissipate. Owen reaches out his hand, Blue fights against the strong restraints, and Claire holds her breath.

They're in for a fight later, she thinks, because she ordered a tracking implant placed into Blue while she was tranquilized, a call that earned her a dirty look but eventual consent from Owen. She's not sure how this is going to play out – Blue is technically InGen's, and while she's sure she can negotiate a contract comparable to those of the other assets (animals, Claire) that makes the next raptor pack theirs, she doesn't know what's going to happen with Blue. She's hoping InGen won't want her on her own and the deal will be an easy one to seal because as she watches Owen's face light up when Blue calms as he strokes her neck, she thinks keeping Blue for him might just be the hill she ends up dying on.

"Do you think she knew you guys were there?" Lowery asks, nodding towards the video feed.

"I don't know," Claire says. "I don't really know that much about them."

She doesn't know much about the dinosaurs, but she's never going to underestimate one or dismiss it as just an animal again, so while the idea of Blue somehow being drawn from wherever she'd been hiding on the island by the knowledge that they were there, that they had returned to Owen's bungalow, sounds preposterous, she's not willing to write it off completely.

"So how much trouble did you get in for that announcement this afternoon?" Lowery wonders.

She grins and lets a tired chuckle escape her lips. "Not as much as I should have." A silence lingers between them for a few moments before she declares her turn to ask a question, and he nods. "Between you and me – honestly – all those leaks to the press…"

He doesn't even let her finish her question before he nods and says, "Yeah, that was me."

She nods, too; she had suspected, after all. "Why?" she asks.

"I know they gave you a bunch of crap for leaving base and going out into the jungle, but I watched it all from in here, and I didn't want them to have the chance to make you a scapegoat," he says, and it's not the answer she was expecting. She didn't expect it to be about her; she expected it to be his own special middle finger to the people who were corporatizing dinosaurs, so she turns, a look of wonder on her face, and he chuckles. He gestures to his shirt and adds, "Sorry about all the cameras and stuff, but, you know, that footage was really awesome."

"Okay, I have to ask," she says, knowing she's going to regret this. "Where did you get that?"

"Oh, there's this site online," Lowery says. "Yeah, independent artists can upload their…"

Claire raises her hand and shakes her head slightly, and Lowery stops. She's heard enough. Her hand comes to her temple as the idea of fans creating art from this whole catastrophe rolls through her brain and she says, "I don't…think I actually want to know."

"Please don't wear it again, right?" Lowery asks.

Claire glances at the shirt again, the shirt that depicts the scariest moment of her life, and she sees the annoyed glances and indignant stares directed towards her, the ones that colored almost every asset containment conversation, almost every conversation period at Masrani Global over the past month, and she grins. The board will hate that shirt. With a small, uncharacteristic, slightly devious giggle, she says, "No, you can wear that again."

"Really?" he asks in disbelief. Before she can change her mind, he says, "Okay, yeah, cool. So you're not mad about all the footage?"

"Oh, not mad. Not really," she admits with a sigh. The minor celebrity thing is weird, and she wishes her nephews hadn't been drawn into the media frenzy, and she could do without the cameras following her and Owen everywhere, but she can probably keep them off of Isla Nublar, at least until the park re-opens, though she's sure they'll find them in Costa Rica, at least until they finally realize how boring she and Owen are, but considering that footage is probably the only reason she's sitting where she's sitting right now, she decides that's a small price to pay. Her eyes, however, narrow in a critical gaze as she adds, "But the genetic makeup of the Indominus? That one certainly didn't do me any favors."

"Yeah, I saw that," Lowery says apologetically, a slight cringe on his face. "Maybe letting that one out was to stick it to the man." He says they can call that the official beginning of the anti-designer dinosaurs movement of Jurassic World, and she laughs, turning back to the big screen at the front of the room.

Owen finds them in the Control Room later that evening, and she's chewing on Twizzlers from the vending machine Lowery raided, watching the camera feeds on the wall, her feet still propped on the workstation beside her. Lowery's still working on something in the back corner of the room, but Claire looks like if it weren't for the candy dangling from her mouth, she'd be curled up asleep on the floor. Owen softly mutters a hello as he enters, not wanting to startle either of them, and Claire lets out a relieved breath, holding a hand up to momentarily grasp his as he walks by her to sit down in the chair next to her feet. He grabs her feet off the table and pulls them into his lap, and she grins, letting her head roll against the back of her chair. He smells like the jungle, despite only being out at the raptor paddock for a few hours, and she doesn't realize how much she missed the smells of the island until she smells them on him.

"How is she?" Claire asks, and Owen chuckles.

"You gonna pretend like you haven't been sitting in here watching me the whole evening?" he asks. She gives a half-hearted shrug, and Owen says Blue is doing just fine. "She's mad at me, but I think she'll get over it. We'll be okay."

"Are we okay?" Claire asks, and Owen looks momentarily confused.

"Oh, the implant?" he finally realizes. He shrugs, having decided it was for the best after he had walked away and cooled down a bit. "She scared me, too," he admits. "Speaking of…"

Claire rolls her eyes; she knows what's coming, and she doesn't know how many times he's going to ask her this question before he accepts her answer. She pulls her feet from his lap, sits up fully, and says, "Really, Owen? Again?"

"Okay, yeah, I know you're probably tired of hearing me ask…" he starts, his hands landing on her knees.

"I'm just tired," she nearly whines, clutching his wrists.

"I just want to make sure that this is what you want," he says lowly. Lowery doesn't seem to be paying a bit of attention to them, but they're still not really alone. "That this decision is yours and you're not choosing to stay because you feel trapped."

"What makes you feel like that might be the case?" she asks.

He brings a hand up to stroke her cheek as he replies, "Because whenever you think nobody's looking at you, you look terrified."

His answer surprises her; she's not used to someone keeping such a close eye on how she's feeling (though she's not entirely opposed to such a development in her life.) She pulls her legs up underneath her body in the chair and gently wraps her hands around just one of his.

"Do you know what will happen if I walk away?" she asks. "They'll find someone like me to run the new Jurassic World, and she will walk in here with her Harvard MBA and her determination to prove herself, to prove it wasn't a mistake because she can do this job, and she can do this job well, and she will sit in these board rooms and talk about the animals as if they are numbers, as if they're not actually alive, and things will go well, for a while, until the numbers slip by half a percentage point, which they inevitably will, and the company spirals into a tizzy, wondering what they can do to get the people interested again. So they'll add a ride here, an experience there, but eventually, when the numbers slip just a little too much, someone will sit in this building and say, 'Hey, remember that genetic modification we used to do? That wasn't such a bad idea! We could make a whole new dinosaur! The last one's pre-sale tickets sold out in thirteen minutes,' and New Claire, who knows nothing about science and only understands the numbers, will think that's a wonderful idea, and then that new dinosaur will be bigger and scarier and louder and have a lot more teeth, and nothing will change."

She says it so convincingly that Owen wonders how long she's been sitting on that speech, and he rubs his calloused thumb against the soft skin of her hand as she finally, finally, takes a breath.

She finishes by saying that while yes, there is a sense of obligation at play here, she also wants to stay here because she loved it here, and she's invested so much of herself into this place that if she can make it better, she wants to do that, so yes, she's staying because she feels responsible, but there's desire there, too, and it is her choice.

"But I need it to be your choice, too, and not just because of me because that won't lead to anything good between us," she says.

He kisses the back of her hand and promises it's not just because of her, though she'd be enough. Blue's still around, and there's a lot of unfinished business, a lot of wrongs here that he wants to right, too.

"So we're staying?" she asks, once and for all.

"We're staying," he confirms. "Now…how would you feel about me moving into that sweet penthouse of yours?"

She laughs and says she'll keep the penthouse for the inevitable late nights and early mornings, but she was thinking they could get a condo or something together in Costa Rica, somewhere they could go home to if, god forbid, something like this ever happens again. The idea rolls off her tongue with ease, and Owen can't help but give her a proper kiss. The makeshift hotel apartment has been fun, but the idea of making a real home with her makes their relationship seem a little more real and a little less for survival, and it's an idea that's just too good to resist.

"Lowery!" Owen calls, finally pulling his forehead away from Claire's.

"Yeah?" Lowery asks, his head peering around a computer unit.

"Can what you're doing wait until morning?" he asks.

"Yeah," Lowery says with a nod, popping a chip into his mouth. "Yeah, I could stop."

Owen turns back to Claire and says, with a knowing smile, "Ready to get off this island?"

He expects and emphatic yes, knowing their tryst in the bungalow that afternoon would've turned into a full-blown nap had Blue not interrupted their cuddling, but that's not what he gets. Instead, Claire grows quiet and pensive, biting the edge of her lip as she stands and drops his hand.

"I need five more minutes," she says. She starts to walk away, and he makes motion to go with her. She turns and places a hand on his shoulder, keeping him in his chair. "Please don't follow me," she requests, and he can't do anything but nod.

She heads for the elevator, both men's eyes following her out, and Owen glances at the screen ahead of him once she's gone; it's his turn to worriedly watch the camera feeds now. He looks at Lowery, who looks as confused at Claire's actions as he feels.

"Think we can get a tracking implant for her, too?" Owen jokes.

She thinks she's officially lost her mind as her feet confidently carry her to Paddock Nine. She uses her Masrani badge to swipe herself in to the locked viewing area that once and will someday again hold dozens of guests, eager to get a glimpse at the most famous dinosaur of them all brutally devouring a goat. The long tunnel is dark and quiet, only illuminated by the moonlight spilling in through the windows, and she's not even sure what she's doing here, but she knows she had to come.

She fixes herself in the center of the window at the middle of the tube, staring into the large enclosure. Claire scans the habitat, silently searching, her brow furrowing when her eyes come up empty. She's not worried. It's dark, and so is the dinosaur; she didn't see her until she was far too close for comfort last time, and she had been holding a bright red flare then. Claire knows she's in there somewhere.

Eventually, after a few minutes, she feels rather than sees the Tyrannosaurus Rex as she stalks towards the window, finally noticing Claire's presence at the glass, the ground shaking slightly with each step as she walks right up to the window, right up to Claire.

Claire stands at the window and soon, the T-Rex does, too, nothing but a sheet of glass separating her from the dinosaur's snout. She sucks in a breath on a short gasp, her heart pounding wildly in her ears, her lip trembling, and she wonders if the animal recognizes her. Her instinct is to run, or at the very least, take a step back, but she fights it. She doesn't move. She doesn't run. She's still. Watching.

Eventually, the T-Rex lets out a heavy breath, fogs up the windows directly in front of Claire, and walks away. She can't see it happen, the window obstructed, but the ground shakes again, and she knows the dinosaur has grown bored with her. Her breathing gradually returns to normal.

The fog slowly dissolves, just in time for Claire to catch one last glimpse of the creature, slinking with a grace surprising for an animal of that size back into her habitat. The T-Rex disappears back into the darkened trees, and once she's gone, Claire turns, disappearing down the darkened hall, back to Owen and back to Jurassic World.

In case it wasn't obvious, I was trying to channel the movie poster with the bit at the end there. I just love that image - Claire on one side of the glass & the Indominus on the other, so different dinosaur, same idea.

And we've reached the end of this little story, but don't worry - there will be more! If you're interested, I'd suggest following me either here or on Tumblr (which is under the same name that I have here) so you don't miss anything :)

Thank you SO much for all of the reviews you guys have left on this story! I'm going to try to respond individually, but you all are just too kind :) See you next time!