A/N: This story is entirely inspired by the world and characters created by Macx in the amazing Pushing Boundaries series. I wrote it after having read the entire series about three times in as many weeks. If you haven't already read it - somehow - I urge you to do so now. All credit goes to Macx, and no OC in this is mine.

Carter stepped out of the hospital having spent the last hour taking statements from a couple of tourists who had apparently got into a fight after spending too long in the Hilton bar. Considering it was barely eleven in the morning, he wasn't impressed. Privately, anyway. He had never really hit the 'dino-craze' as a kid, but really? You fly all this way to where dinosaurs walk the earth – to where the impossible happened on a daily basis – and you spend your time getting drunk? He almost had more respect for the idiots who tried to climb the fences to get their selfies up close and personal. Almost. Not really.

He was brought out of his exasperated musings by the sight of Owen Grady walking the other way into the hospital. He raised an eyebrow as he intercepted him. "Don't tell me you've managed to injure yourself again?" Truthfully, he was only half joking, and he visually checked the man over quickly.

Owen scowled. "And good morning to you. No, I'm just here to get my booster shots."

Oh, yes. There had been an email sent around yesterday afternoon. Apparently two of the new baby gallimimus had picked up an infection that might have been transmitted from a human. Not definite, and not, thankfully, life threatening, but enough that there had been an email sent around for all staff with direct dinosaur contact to come in for booster vaccines. And of course no one had more direct dinosaur contact than their resident alpha.

"I haven't even been sick in years," Owen went on with a grimace.

"Better safe than sorry, right?" he pointed out easily. "The last thing we want is some infection running riot."

A shadow fell briefly over Owen's face. "True," he said shortly.

Carter suddenly remembered that according to the files the other pack of velociraptors, before Blue and the others, had died from an infection. The thought of that happening to the squad was a frightening one, and it must be far more so for Owen.

He was watching, and he caught the brief flicker in Owen's eyes, the involuntary fraction-of-a-second glance towards the other side of the island and something – someone. Four someones. - that he couldn't possibly see. Carter wondered, not for the first time, what other conversation Owen might be having right now. What couldn't he, Carter, hear? Words of reassurance? A question? It wasn't telepathy, Owen had made that clear enough, but it was communication. The man standing in front of him might be communicating with a raptor several miles away right now. Somehow, that never stopped being weird. Or amazing.

"Though your girls were specially bred against that, weren't they," he added, casually, pretending he hadn't noticed a thing. Which he wouldn't have, if he hadn't been looking for it. Owen was good at keeping his secrets.

Owen smiled slightly. "They've never been sick either," he replied.

Which was good. No one really discussed what might happen to Owen if the pack died, or vice versa, but it was part of Carter's remit to come up with contingencies for both. "Good," he said. "Are you coming to movie night tonight? Your friend Nancy invited me. And then she mentioned something about Juanita from the botany department...I have a feeling she's trying to set me up."

"Good luck," Owen grinned. "That's not something I can help with. And yes, I'll be there. I'd better go before I'm late for my appointment. See you later, Dan."

"Right." He watched Owen walk away, and then started heading back to security, hoping that the rest of the day would be quiet at least.

It was just after lunch when he got the call from Claire Dearing "I'm afraid we might have a problem," she began, with very little preamble.

And those were words that could send a shiver of dread up any man's spine. Especially a man in charge of security at the world's most potentially dangerous theme park. "What's wrong?"

"Dr Annika Svenson just called me," Claire went on. "She's been innoculating the trainers and some of them have been reporting side effects."

"What kind of side effects?" he asked sharply.

"Nothing too serious, so far, she says," she reassured him. "Dizzyness, drowsiness, and, um...'" She coughed slightly. "Feelings of euphoria'."

He digested that for a brief second. "They're high?"

"Something like that," she agreed, sounding like this was the last way she wanted her afternoon to go. "And all the ones who are reporting the side effects are pretenaturally talented. She's not sure if it was a bad batch, or if it's some kind of specific reaction."

"If it is, it sounds like something she should have been warned about already," he said, frowning.

Claire sounded exasperated. "I'm just the messenger, Mr Carter. Pretenatural pharmacology isn't my area of expertise. It isn't even Dr Svenson's area. Honestly, I'm not sure that there is an expert."

Probably not. He'd investigated enough now to be certain that maintaining a low profile was basically standard operating practice for pretenaturals. "You know, we probably have more talented people working here than anywhere else in the world," he said. "I know they're not here to be studied, but if there's a possibility that this sort of thing could happen - "

" - I'll think about taking it up with Mr Masrani," she interrupted. "But that's not why I called you. Dr Svenson's managed to make contact with all our known talented staff who've had the inoculations...except one."

There was that feeling of dread again. "Who?"

"Owen," she said with a resigned sigh. "I've tried calling as well. He's not answering his phone. Now, all the others seem absolutely fine, so probably he's just sleeping it off, if he's affected at all, but I would appreciate it if - "

" - I'll head out there right away," he promised.

"Thank you," she said gratefully. "Let me know that everything's okay as soon as you can."

When he'd first started working here, if he'd got that call, he would have assumed that Owen was in serious trouble, that the raptor pack would have spotted a weakness and turned on him. Even as recently as a year ago, he would have been concerned at least, as to how they would react. Now, as he drove up towards the paddock and Owen's house, his only real worry was that Owen might have had a worse reaction to the injection than the others. After all, by the sounds of things, no one actually knew how this worked – suppose it was worse based on the strength of the talent, or how often it was used?

He spotted that the paddock door was open the moment he got close. O-kay. He genuinely did trust in Owen's control – influence – on the pack, and he knew that they had no reason to want to harm him, but the knowledge that four apex predators could be lurking anywhere near by was always going to be enough to set the hairs on the back of his neck prickling.

So he was cautious when he got out the jeep, looking around, aware of his gun but keeping his hands clear of it, making sure to keep his body language relaxed and unconcerned. Not a threat and not prey...but really, he didn't need to bother because all four raptors were in the paddock, along with their alpha.

Huh.

Owen was slumping, with one arm slung across Blue's neck, the other over Delta, a large goofy smile on his face as he spoke lovingly into Blue's shoulder. "...and you're amazing...so clever...so beautiful...you know I love you – all of you – right?" Meanwhile, Blue was making a sort of crooning noise, Delta was nosing at Owen's hand, Echo appeared to be trying to fit beneath the leather jacket Owen was wearing, and Charlie was gazing in apparent fascination at her own feet as she did something like a soft-shoe shuffle.

Apex predators. Right.

"Owen?" he called, trying to sound casual. Normal.

Five heads snapped up, looking at him with somehow identical expressions of interest. "Oh, hi, Carter," Owen said. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to check on you," he said easily. "Claire and Dr Svenson have been trying to get hold of you. They were worried you might have a reaction to that shot you got."

Owen shrugged, making Delta wobble slightly as she leaned on him. "I feel fine."

Uh huh. "You want to maybe come back to the hospital with me so Dr Svenson can check you over?" he tried.

"Nah," Owen said, still beaming in a way that Carter somehow found incredibly disconcerting. "Maybe later. Right now I want to spend time with my girls. Have you seen how amazing they are?" He reached back and patted Echo vaguely and she made a sound that Carter would swear was almost a purr. "They're all brilliant. I just...I can't get over how brilliant they are. How lucky I am."

Blue gave a soft, sharp bark and pushed herself closer into Owen's side.

"Yeah, I love you too," Owen said, as in in answer and then paused, head cocked to one side as if he was listening. "Never," he said decidedly, to a question that Carter would never know.

He considered for a brief second, the merits of trying to remove Owen from the pack when Owen didn't want to go and none of them were apparently in their right minds. No, on the whole, that sounded like the opposite of a good idea.

Discretion being the better part of valour, he retreated back towards Owen's house, keeping a close eye on the paddock, and called Claire. "So is Dr Svenson sure that the side effects are harmless?" he asked.

"It certainly seems that way," she said. "The ones who got the injection yesterday are all back to normal now. Have you found Owen?"

"Oh, yes," he said resignedly. "Apparently the mood part of the side effects can be transmitted through the pack bond. I'm currently looking at a stoned pack of velociraptors and their alpha who's busy telling each of them how much he loves them."

There was silence for a long moment. "Oh, God," Claire said at last.

"This really wasn't covered when I took this job," he mused. "I think I should get a bonus for Owen Grady-related weirdness."

"I think we could all claim that," she said tartly. "I...does he seem alright?"

"Seems to be," he said, watching Owen sit down happily and lean back against Charlie, while Blue put her head across his lap. "Just...maybe a little more cuddly and a little less discreet than usual. I don't want to risk going in there to get him out though."

"No," she agreed. "No, just...stay there and keep an eye on him. And let me know if anything changes."

"Will do," he said, and Owen was now rubbing the back of Blue's head, like she was an overgrown kitten.

"Cuddly?" she repeated incredulously, and he could imagine the way she was shaking her head. "Take pictures. Lots of pictures."

Definitely.

A/N: Thanks for reading, let me know what you think.