Chapter Text
He got the call at work.
He thought it might be bad when Barry came clambering up the stairs, a frown on his face. Barry knew better than to interrupt him when he was trying to work with the girls.
"Phone call,” Barry told him. “It’s Claire’s sister.” Owen dropped the bucket he was holding, and rushed down to the office. Karen wouldn’t call him unless something had happened.
"It’s Claire,” Karen said breathlessly after he answered. “They couldn’t get a hold of you, and so they tried me. There’s been an accident, I don’t know anything else, I just don’t know anything.” She sounded fucking scared, and there are a million scenarios that run through Owen’s head, and none of them are good. They live on an island with fucking dinosaurs, not to mention a million other things in that jungle that could possibly kill them.
His phone was buried in a pile of paperwork in the trailer next to the raptor paddock, and when he dug it out he saw a slew of missed calls.
“I’ll call you back as soon as I know anything,” Owen promised.
“As soon as you do,” Karen insisted, and then disconnected the phone. Owen listened to the message from Zara first, and could barely make out what she was saying. Her words were rushed and clipped and she wasn’t making any sense, but he heard the words “accident” and “bleeding” and was already moving towards where his bike was parked.
He doesn’t bother listening to any other messages, already dialing Zara’s number. She answered on the third ring, with,
“Where are you?”
“I’m leaving the paddock now, right now. Where’d they take her?” There was a small hospital on the island for minor injuries and illnesses, and it doesn’t do his racing heart any good when Zara tells him that they’ve already airlifted her to Costa Rica to the main hospital there.
“Masrani’s got a helicopter waiting to take you,” Zara told him. “We’ll go as soon as you get here.”
“What happened?” Owen asked. “How bad is it?” There was a long pause on the other end of the phone, before a sigh came down the line.
“Just get here as fast as you can,” Zara answered. “I’ll explain on the way, but it’s not good.” Her voice broke towards the end of the sentence and Owen pressed hard on the gas.
It wasn’t a dinosaur.
It was a fucking car accident, and wasn’t that something? She lived and worked with dangerous animals, and it was an ordinary car accident that had Owen pacing the floor of a private waiting room in the hospital on the Costa Rican coast.
Just as Zara had promised, she was waiting for Owen when he arrived at the Innovation Center, skidding to a stop in front of the building.
Her arms were crossed over her body, and she looked pale and scared, and Owen’s heart skipped a beat.
“What happened?” He asked again, and Zara sighed with her whole body.
“That new spinosaurus handler? Rob? You know him?” Owen did, and he didn’t like him. He hadn’t liked him even before Claire complained about him being rude, aggressive, and spending his time alternating between talking to her like she was an idiot and talking to only her chest.
“What about him?” Owen asked, following Zara as she wove her way through the crowd to the elevator.
“He called in, a breach in the fence, and insisted that Claire come out, claimed that it was the third time it happened this month and that failing to heed his warnings would result in fatalities and a lawsuit. He was insistent that Claire handle this herself, wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Zara leaned back against the wall of the elevator as it rose, and Owen clenched his hands at his side.
"What was she supposed to do about it?” Owen seethed. Zara shrugged helplessly.
“I don’t know, Owen. Claire figured she would waste more time in arguing with him than she would just riding out with someone from the security team and checking on it,” Zara continued. They stepped out onto the helicopter pad, and her words were cut off by the sound of the rotating blades. Owen ducked underneath and was surprised to find Mr. Masrani already climbed aboard.
"Hello, Mr. Grady,” Masrani greeted with a grim look on his face.
"Sir,” Owen replied, buckling his seat belt and sliding on the headset.
“I was just filling him in,” Zara explained, the door closing behind her and the pilot lifting the helicopter moments later. She turned back to Owen. “Claire grabbed Joey, do you know Joey? Maybe you don’t. He’s new. ACU. It doesn’t matter.” Zara shook her head, trying to refocus. “They drove out to figure out what was going on and try to appease Rob. He was really agitated, Owen, really agitated. I could hear him shouting at Claire through the phone.” She sighed. “Joey said that Rob was waiting for them to drive the rest of the way to the breach, and Claire switched cars so that she could try to calm Rob down on the way. Joey said they were about a mile out when Rob began driving erratically, zig zagging and speeding up and then slamming on his brakes. He wasn’t sure what happened, but Rob lost control of the car. They hit a tree on the passenger side, on Claire’s side.” Zara let out a shaky breath.
Claire’s side.
"She was awake,” Masrani filled in softly.“When Joey got to the car, Claire was still awake. That’s good, Owen, that’s really good.”
“Rob was fine,” Zara practically spit the words, the anger dripping from her voice. Owen could understand that anger, he felt it wash over him and for a moment it was better than the paralyzing fear.
He had never wanted to hurt a person as much as he wanted to hurt Rob. He wanted to hurt him, feed him to his raptors, make him pay.
Because he had hurt Claire, and that was unacceptable.
“And Claire?” Owen asked, not knowing if he wanted the answer.
“They airlifted her out,” Zara said. “There’s internal bleeding, and she hit her head and fractured her arm. The last thing I heard was that she was in surgery.”
“She was holding her own,” Masrani jumped in. “You know our Claire, she’s strong.” She was strong. She was so strong, but the idea of having to live without her was one that Owen wasn’t prepared to confront. It made his insides twist painfully.
No, no, no, she had to be okay. Anything else was not a possibility.
After they landed, they were immediately shuffled off to a private waiting room where they waited for what felt like an eternity.
"Isn’t someone going to come out and tell us what’s happening?” Owen asked, glaring at the closed door. Masrani had left about an hour before, having to take a few phone calls and promising to check in, but Barry had joined them, slipping into the room to offer quiet support.
“No news is good news?” Zara offered weakly, sighing as she tipped her head back against the seat.
“You’re making me dizzy,” Barry told Owen. “Take a seat.”
"I can’t sit,” Owen shot back, even as he was dropping into the chair next to him, burying his face in his hands.
Owen should have figured something was going to happen. Things had been so good lately, ridiculously good.
In the months since New Year’s, Claire had slowly been migrating all of her things to Owen’s bungalow, until finally one morning he gathered his courage and asked her to make it official and move in. She had hesitated at first, nervous about what the rest of the staff would think, nervous that they were moving too fast, nervous about a whole host of reasons that Owen didn’t quite understand, and he told her as much.
They had gotten into a fight about it, until in the middle of arguing Owen had found a way to shut her up.
“I love you, damn it,” he exclaimed, and Claire had stopped, her eyes wide.
"What?” She asked.
"I love you,” he softened his voice. “You’re impossible, and you infuriate me, but I love you so damn much.” There had been a beat of tense silence before Claire crashed her lips against his.
“I love you, too,” she mumbled. “You’re an idiot, and I love you.”
They fought, of course they did, but they were happy. Their jobs were good, the Park was good, everything was so damn good that Owen should have known that the other shoe was going to drop.
And here he was, the shoe dropped, sitting, waiting to see what the rest of his life would look like.
“It can’t be long,” Barry offered, “they’ve got to come out and tell you something soon.”
Please, Owen thought, offering up prayers to anyone he thought would listen. Please, please, please let her be okay.
It was hours later when they finally came to find him. She was out of surgery, in recovery, and he could go back once she was settled in the ICU.
They managed to stop the bleeding, set her arm, and were worried about the concussion, but nothing could be done about that until she woke up.
Which, thank God, thank God, thank God, they were certain she would.
Zara had fallen asleep, slumped against his shoulder, and he shook her awake to tell her the news. Barry had gone back to the island to take care of the girls, promising that would be one less thing for Owen to worry about.
It was another small eternity before the nurse brought him back to Claire’s room. He stopped short when he saw her in the bed, her red hair extra vibrant against the white of the crisp sheets. She looked so tiny in the bed, so tiny and so fragile and so unlike his force-of-nature Claire that it momentarily sucked the breath from his lungs.
He approached her cautiously, and the nurse nudged him.
“You won’t hurt her,” she assured him, and he picked up her hands and tangled their fingers together and brushed a piece of hair from her face.
“You’re going to be okay,” he told her firmly. There was no other option. She had to be okay. “I’m right here, you rest, I’ll be right here when you wake up.”