Aaaaaand we're back, with more dark humor and awful post-film shenanigans for your reading pleasure. Today's highlights in this sorry mess of a story chapter include dragging several of the more glaring inaccuracies of the Jurassic World's aquatic juggernaut through the mud via exposition from our favorite surrogate raptor-dad Owen, the girls finally waking up and interacting with Owen (and they are most assuredly not happy), and of course, Owen's valiant attempt to introduce fish to the diet of a primarily carnivorous raptors because Wu was too much a **** to leave out the lysine deficiency in the park's new generations of genetically-modified crowd-pleasers...I mean, dinosaurs.

NOTE #1: I'm not sure if I gave justice to the reunion here between Owen and the girls, but hopefully it works. Writing for sentient hybrid dinosaurs is definitely not my forte...

NOTE #2: What Internet research I did for the fishing chunk of this chapter told me that alligator gar tend to prefer "dead lakes", backwater areas, or such spots as swamps, marshes, etc. where their preferred hunting style of stalk and ambush works best, their ideal spawning grounds are a little more easily available, and, thanks to their vascularized swim bladders, they can outlast less prepared fish when the oxygen levels might drop from surface clogging due to algae, moss, debris, etc.. In later months approaching fall, they also apparently like deep river bends near relatively shallow pools, congregating in the deeper water and being more easily noticeable by human eyes in more shallow water.

Please remember that fishing for a gar of any kind on your own like Owen does is inadvisable and quite dangerous (they all are rather heavy, they get big, and their teeth are super sharp!), and is done here for story purposes only!

Like any dinosaur trainer that was, is, or would be employed by the park, Owen been curious when he'd come to the island, and done his best to research his field of study as much as possible, expanding on his knowledge with what he learned when working with his girls. Though his primary area of expertise was the handling, training, and maintenance in combination with behavioral study of the park's issued Velociraptor pack only, he'd known far, far before he'd gotten his first email concerning the job offer that learning anything and everything potentially useful in his current situation could potentially be beneficial in the long run. Before he'd worked at the park, he'd worked with dolphins, and although a pod was not precisely the same as a pack, there had been a few relationship values to learn that translated reasonably well into raptor handling. Even now, years and scars and too many emotions and responsibilities to count later, he'd kept them, pulling them forth from the recesses of his mind as needed.

At the moment, he was adhering to one of the most basic of those values: do your best to ensure the wellbeing of those around you.

The fish he'd found spoiled in the laundry basket had found one final use in their dead, fouled state: impromptu additions to the bait bucket. With his new idea firmly in mind, Owen took the lot, dumped them into the bucket, and used them to help chum the water when he went out on the lake and into the nearby river feeding new water into it. Up the river only a little ways, the water was slow-running and dark as the lake surface, and finding a hole to fish was none too difficult, thanks to the bends and dips of the river forming little "pockets" of sunken areas where sediment and mud rose and fell.

True to form, several scavenging species had emerged from the depths when he'd disturbed the water with the offal tidbits, and with them, the alligator gar slowly followed suit, emerging from the depths to stalk and ambush the prey that came in search of the potential food source that was being rained from the surface. With a huge amount of patience, even more effort, and more than a little sheer dumb luck, he'd managed to lure in a single alligator gar (smaller than average, but good testing material for the girls to try out anyway) and then the battle commenced.

Setting the hook had taken seemingly an age, as pulling back when there were several hundred yards of line let out for safety's sake meant an extraordinary amount of strength needed to be expended to make sure both his quarry and his fishing gear didn't get plunged into the river. Keeping the gar from rushing away to the safety of reeds, rocks, and even the other side of the hole meant many bouts of pulling, then letting the tension out of the line, then repeating the act until finally, finally, when his arms were screaming from strain and his fingers felt raw, the huge fish finally shuddered and slowed in exhaustion. He'd managed, with a good deal of difficulty thanks to his own exhaustion and the slipperiness of his catch, to slowly haul the gar into the boat and, with what felt like the last dregs of strength he had, cut the head off with his knife with sharp, ruthless efficiency, letting it bleed out into the now emptied bait bucket to dump into the lake later.

Stopping just long enough to greedily drain a bottle and a half of water, he'd taken off back down the river and back across the lake, knowing the painkillers wouldn't last much longer and that, if he had any hope of making his catch edible, it needed to be taken back fresh. As the boat hurtled across the water, skipping occasionally like a stone across the surface, the bucket sloshed a river of blood into the bottom of the vessel, splattering Owen's boots and splashing him in uneven bursts with each especially rough jolt from the boat's impact against water.

The air was muggy and still, vaguely swollen with mosquitoes, as he trekked back slowly to the bungalow, boots and socks sodden with lake water, shorts clinging uncomfortably in a way that suggested future itching. His hands twinged painfully as skin rubbed up against the jagged edges of numerous hard, enamel-like scales coating flesh like a natural coat of armor. The low, meaty shhhhhhhh as the bottom half of his catch was dragged along the ground reverberated with each soggy step through the grass and mud. Out on the water, his small boat bobbed on the surface, looking akin to a child's toy in bathwater as the sun grew fat and red with age.

Exhausted in more ways than he could name, Owen sank down into one of the lawn chairs out front with an almost obscene groan of relief, rubbing his temples with the pads of his sore fingers to stave off some of the discomfort from the headache he'd acquired while spending the morning, as well as a good chunk of the afternoon, fishing.

In retrospect, he mused ruefully, maybe fishing on the lake without more water was a bad idea.

But then, what wasn't a bad idea, nowadays? He was living with four of the most dangerous creatures on the planet, armed only with a bowie knife and what brains he could lay claim to.

Taking a moment to drink the remaining contents of the second of two water bottles he'd taken when he'd gone fishing, Owen went to look over his catch: a single alligator gar, rinsed of mud and dirt with lake water, almost five feet long now that it was bereft of it's head, and, with luck, a decent meal. He'd offer it to the girls first. If they didn't take to it, he could eat it and use any leftovers for more bait.

Giving a slow sigh, he dunked his knife into the lake, then wiped it dry with a towel on the picnic table, content to sterilize it later.

Straightening himself upright, he slipped his knife back into it's holster, then approached the bungalow. A moment was taken to regain composure before opening the door, then stepping back several feet away and staring intently inside.

Four pairs of eyes, glittering in all the manner of the colours of flame, stared back.

Owen stepped forward, slowly, with no hesitation. Both hands were held out with palms open, eye contact held steadily. In nature, initiating and maintaining eye contact would be considered a challenge, but here, at the end of all things that had been, he knew that the case was different.

Here, he could look at his girls and see them, as they could look back and see him.

As he knew would be the case, Blue came first, stepping out into the fading light of the late afternoon sun with her head high and her sickle claw stabbing into the earth, her only sign of agitation. Delta, teal colouring washing into a green tinge reminiscent of an infant Charlie in the sun, followed out after her, stopping just behind her shoulder and flicking her long tail back and forth, the tip of it slapping into Echo's legs as she and Charlie fanned out the flank their sisters from behind. Charlie looked from behind the wall of her siblings to stare at Owen, eyes wide, and the lump in his throat was sudden and painful.

With no small amount of difficulty, he ignored it, as well as the urge to do something as insurmountably stupid as to reach out a hand to touch them, assure himself with physical certainty that they were truly there (real, real, real, alive, alive, alive). Their colouring was better, they stood tall and steady, and their eyes still gleamed with that unsettling awareness that marked them as living, breathing death. He could ask for no better in their recovery, given the circumstances, and he forced himself to think of it, remember it, as a positive part of the situation.

Not like you could keep them in the nest forever, Grady.

There was a long, unnerving moment, Blue's expression unwavering as solid marble, Owen refusing to look away. His heart thumped almost painfully in his chest; he focused on calming down, knowing they could likely smell the sudden change in pace. The urge to tap his knife against his thigh, palm the handle and dance the blade between his fingers, burned like a brand, but he shoved it down, far, far down, down to where he could deal with it when he wasn't about to gain or lose everything that mattered anymore.

The thought came, sudden, swift, and retreating just as quickly, that if they chose to reject him now, he wouldn't be capable of surviving it. Everything that had happened, everything that would be, and if Blue refused (and they would fall in line, all of them, even if Charlie begged and no matter how much Delta snarled or Echo shrieked) he wouldn't be able to go back. He couldn't go back to being just Owen (just human just alone) again, couldn't fathom thinking of no-pack-no-pack-no-pack after over half a decade living with golden eyes keeping watch in the dark, heads that pricked up at sound of Eyes on me that had become code for safe and pack and I'm here, of the claws just as ready to rip into his flesh as that of the pigs he gave them turning to the claws that had fought off a living, breathing nightmare for him.

He didn't want to be alone again. But it isn't all my decision, is it?

In the end, he was the alpha, but his girls were the ones who had the choice now, and he could only wait to see if it would be in his favour. He'd patched them up, but if they were to stand on their own, they had to choose if they wanted him beside them.

He waited, knife still sheathed. Delta's tail flickered in a blur of movement.

He waited, Charlie letting out soft, almost inaudible chuffs as she stared at him with eyes too young to belong to her.

He waited, Echo's finger claws flexing slightly as she stared to her sisters, then at Owen, then back again.

He waited, took a deep breath, and staunchly refused to pray that he wasn't wrong.

"Eyes on me."

Blue moved.

Owen wrestled against the instinctive, ingrained urge to reach for his knife as Blue suddenly shoved herself into his field of vision like a too-close phantom; his fingers twitched, he cursed inwardly at the self-aborted motion (in the end, he wouldn't be able to use it anyway, so where else would it go save empty air or turned back into his own flesh for daring to try?), and then his throat was being nudged by reptilian scale. A small break between flesh was noted, his mind filling in the blanks as he realized, dimly, as if from far away, that she was nudging his throat, bumping against his Adam's apple, rubbing against the sides of his neck, the hollow of his throat, and he felt something sore in his chest relax, though he knew logically he should be at least feeling like panicking at having the razor-sharp teeth so close to his carotid arteries.

For a small, small moment, he stood utterly frozen, trying to process the sensation of what had happened, and then there was an impatient rumble from somewhere around the vicinity of his chest, and before he could stop himself, he reached out and his hands made contact with the top of Blue's head.

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Barry was muttering You've finally lost it, mon ami but Owen decided that if this meant he was crazy, so be it. The slow, deep rumbling (purr, his mind insisted, it's purring, you damn moron) that came trickling out in streams as he stood there was worth it.

Within moments, as if Blue had somehow signaled a universal "all-clear", he was bracketed on all sides by moving, scaly hides, claws snagging his shirt like they'd done when they were still small enough to be carted around in a blanket-filled box. Charlie, at his hip, crooning as she nuzzled his side. Echo at his back, claws wound so deep into his shirt's fabric that he knew it would tear if she moved away. Delta, nudging his shoulder and trying to claim attention from the hand that wasn't currently placed against the top of Blue's head as if permanently cemented there.

Owen felt warm, giddy, vaguely drunk, a smile pulling at his mouth as if trying to rip his face in half.

Home, every last nudge and bump and hiss and flick of a tail. Home, eyes in all the shades of fire and claws more ancient that a mountain of ivory. Home, the insistent, relentless cardiac repetition, entangled, interwoven, of Blue-Charlie-Delta-Echo that became Echo-Delta-Charlie-Blue and back again until the pounding in his chest matched the pounding in his ears.

Owen laughed. Blue bumped her head against his chin (shut up) and his jaw ached with the pain of returned fondness.

The Mosasaur was unnervingly observant, Owen had noted when he'd first visited the prehistoric terror of the deep. The large, dark eyes glittered with something eerily close to raptor intelligence, sharp as a katana's blade, each one larger than a grown man's fist, and disturbingly alien-like. They tracked the sharks offered during feeding times like a cat staring at a caged pet bird, waiting until the prey was within ambushing range before striking like a bolt of lightning. For all that the park's more "fair weather friend" investors complained that, over time, the enourmous aquatic reptile was simply going to become a larger, scalier dinosaur version of a certain killer whale attraction, Owen knew all too well that the hulking creature lurking in the depths of the lagoon was no normal sea predator.

Wu and his scientists had assembled, for all intents and purposes, a full-fledged Leviathan, maw populated full to bursting with teeth and ever gaping in that universal gesture of hunger.

In the early days of the Mosasaur Exhibit's opening to the public eye, the stadium had been crammed full to bursting with spectators, wide-eyed and gleeful about the prehistoric carnage that had been brought into existence for their paid entertainment. Children and adults alike screamed in terrified delight upon witnessing the devouring of one of humanity's more commonly feared apex predators as if the sharks were no more than table scraps deemed worthy of attention by the family housecat. Waves bursting into existence like a crate of firecrackers going off, the water churning into a fine froth like the foamed milk top of an overpriced latte as a huge, unnatural shadow surged up from the depths of the lagoon to claim a new prize. Every time, eerie in its clockwork brutality, frail human ears took in the brutal snap of the powerful jaws as the many sets of teeth closed tight around the squirming, flailing body (it wasn't until later that they were delivered dead on arrival, after all, but what choice was there? Too much hassle to bring in live prey for a split second before it gets chomped on like a starving wolf with a downed moose, and the blood that sprayed everywhere took forever to clean out of the stadium seats, not to mention all the rich soccer moms that complained about their designer purses getting ruined and spoiled bratty kids shouting that their cellphones got all wet when they tried to ignore the "No Filming" policy and the overprotective parents with the "Your gorefest of a dinosaur show gave my son nightmares!" speech) and swallowed it down like a heron did to a mouthful of frogs or fish...

Now, though, the park's most noted aquatic attraction could be remembered for something else: a slow, inevitable death.

With the evacuation of the park, the dinosaurs that lived there were left, for all intents and purposes, to fend for themselves until they either learned how to establish a niche for themselves, died, or had their handlers come back to take care of them. Given the sheer devastation of the main park areas, the slaughter of multiple Apatosaurus herd members, the air bombing of the Dimorphodon flyers onto the tourists in the main streets, and the death of over half the main security team just for the basic outline of the overall collateral damage, it was unlikely that Jurassic World would reopen any time soon. Perhaps, when the public's memories had faded somewhat, grieving had been done, and the total benefits of reopening were weighted against the dangers, there could be a chance in the far future, but now?

In the time that it took for any official action to be even considered for reopening the park, the lagoon's only inhabitant would be starving, weakening. By the time action was taken, death would have sunken in like marine snow fluttering to the sea floor.

Currently, Owen only had three certainties in his life: the park was Ground Zero for the foreseeable future (and thus outside help or first-world advancements were likely out of the question), his pack was alive, and until they were able to hunt and survive at their best again, there would be times where he had to step in for them.

The five of them stepped through the park like wraiths, the thud thud thud footfalls of heavy boots jarring against a background of raptor sickle-claw tap-tap-tap as Owen wove in and out of the abandoned streets with Blue at his hip. Echo hissed at the shattered-glass reflections that popped up from ruined storefronts and street pavement; Charlie, skittish from the lack of activity other than the pack, bolted back and forth across the street, peering into the ravaged restaurants and stores and dashing back with a warble whenever her sisters or Owen was deemed to move too far. Delta flanked Blue from several paces back, head turning this way and that as she took in the destruction.

All the while, a low, dull shhhhhhhh rent the air as Owen dragged the long, scaly body of his catch behind him, backpack straps digging into his shoulders as the bucket of blood inside sloshed noisily. Though they didn't help him move it themselves, he was inwardly grateful that whenever he stopped to rest, Blue simply looked at the others and everyone stopped moving until he began again.

True, it had been a spur-of-the-moment idea, but it had enough promise in it that Owen felt it was worth trying out.

Finally, to the relief of his screaming muscles, they reached their destination. Owen stood before the huge doors, pack flanking him on each side, and felt a low burn of grim anticipation unfurl in his gut like some poisonous flower.

"Well, girls," he turned, stared into their eyes, watched Blue snap her jaws and stand tall and proud as a mountain, Charlie chirp and Echo and Delta flex claws in hungry anticipation, "What do you say we hunt us a Mosasaur?"