I'm really good at being good at goodbyes - ToshiChan (2024)

Chapter 1: I bid farewell to the port and the land

Chapter Text

It’s okay at first.

Well, it’s not really, but it’s something resembling okay and that’s the best they can do right now. It’s the six of them against the world- or in this case a hospital- and much like certain times on the island when things would click perfectly into place, it feels like there’s nothing they can’t do.

(Darius likens it to coming up with the ‘save the dinosaurs at the watering hole’ plan. Kenji says it feels like when they got Ben back.)

That being said, it’s barely been a day since they got back to land, and it sort of feels like they’ve swapped one cage for another. Scarred and sick and malnourished kids don’t get to just waltz away from successful island escapes, even if they’ve proven they’re more than capable of holding their own. The news crews barely had time to stick cameras in their faces before a herd of ambulances arrived to usher them away. With no parents or guardians yet to arrive- kinda obvious considering they’re in Costa Rica and not like, California or something- the Camp Fam are each other’s ambassadors as doctors and nurses at the swanky private American hospital swarm them the way a hungry pack of Compys likes to swarm any unattended food. No camper is concerned about themselves. Rather, they each pick a friend (or something more) and campaign for them to receive top treatment.

“You gotta check Yaz’s foot!” Sammy scolds one nurse who keeps trying to stick a blood pressure cuff on her arm. The two girls hold hands even amongst the flood of staff trying to pull them apart. It makes it hard for any work to get done, which is kind of the point. The only reason they’re sitting down at all and being towered over by the workers is because Sammy had made a beeline for some chairs the second she’d spotted them.

“My foot’s fine,” Yaz says through gritted teeth. She’s close to kicking the prodding fingers of the doctor away. Only Sammy’s comforting grip keeps her from lashing out. “You need a serious checkup after all that venom.”

“Pshaw, I’m right as rain. Besides, that was ages ago. You got me the antidote.”

“You nearly died.”

In an opposite corner, Ben snarls at anyone who so much as glances in his direction, teeth bared in the most optimal way to intimidate a rouge dinosaur. A nervous Kenji plants himself in front of Ben and tries to offer a more friendly refusal of blood tests and thermometers.

“Really, we’re fine,” he says as cheerily as he can. The red raw scars and clear outline of bones says otherwise, but sometimes Kenji’s ‘I’m a posh prep kid’ is even more effective than Ben’s feral growls. Maybe it’s because he’s actually saying words instead of just hissing. Lot harder to ignore someone saying no when they’re explicit about it.

Brooklyn squeezes herself in next to Ben once it becomes clear Kenji’s going to be the most affective at denying the doctors and nurses access. Even with her signature pink hair mostly faded to brown, she’s still the easiest to recognise. Already a stray phone has been aimed in her direction. Her face is probably already making the rounds on social media- likely to be accompanied by a variety of clickbait-y titles. Brooklyn Sighted! Brooklyn Unboxes a Hospital. Brooklyn Not Actually Dead!

Darius appears to be the most composed of all as he allows a doctor (maybe the most senior, if the way everyone else addresses her) to ask him a series of quick, simple questions that assess his condition. To an outsider this makes him the most reasonable. To the Camp Fam, they see it for what it really is. Darius as the leader takes the biggest risks first. He won’t ask anyone to do something he isn’t comfortable doing himself. If they’re going to be properly treated, Darius is going to make sure it's safe.

It's only when the head doctor asks him how long they were on the island for that he hesitates.

“I don’t…I’m not sure,” he forces a smile even as his eyes dart to someone else for backup. “What’s the date today?”

When she tells him, the smile fades away. “Oh…that would make it…” he doesn’t finish the sentence. The doctor doesn’t ask again.

Yeah. Not really okay.

Better than an island of hungry dinosaurs, but not by much.

When it becomes clear (well, clearer) that there’s no progress to be made in the emergency department of the hospital, a private room is secured with six beds shoved in close together to allow the kids a chance to rest before the treatment starts up again. It’s a clear breaking of rules but this is an extreme circ*mstance that doesn’t really allow for proper protocol to be followed. The head doctor signs off on it, and the kids offer lacklustre thankyous as they sprawl out on beds not that much comfortable than their thinning mattress they’d had back on the island. The head doctor (whose name Darius asks for but forgets as soon as she says it) says they can have thirty minutes to themselves, and then they’ll need to be looked after. There’s no protesting that will convince her otherwise. Darius concedes, but it’s with the same resignation he’d had one the island when time and time again they’d been forced to make a life out of nothing. He’s only saying yes because he can’t say no.

When the head doctor leaves, she shuts the door.

Instantly the talking starts.

“Ben?” Darius only has to say his name before Ben is darting to the door, pressing his back against the wall, and keeping one perfectly attuned ear directed towards the corridor. Their lookout is in place.

“To trust or not to trust?” Kenji says. He’s flopped back on his bed in his usual carefree tangle of long limbs, but his eyes glint as they scan the room.

“It’s a hospital,” Sammy says. She scrambles onto Yaz’s bed and they lean into each other. “Trust.”

“They wanna stick needles in us,” Ben scowls. “Not trust.”

Darius perches on the end of Kenji’s chosen bed. Six beds is the normal amount of beds for six kids, but cramped as the room is, he can’t bring himself to be alone- even in such a small way. “I don’t think we have a choice,” he says carefully. He knows how they all feel about trusting adults. After getting their hopes up and watching them crash back down so many times, it seems stupid to try again.

The problem is they’re not on the island anymore. The freedom that had afforded them is gone. Back here in the real world, they’re just kids. And kids don’t get a say in sh*t. Especially in moments like these.

“We could break out,” Yaz suggests.

“And go where?” Brooklyn asks. “We’re home. We’re off the island. Isn’t that…”

Isn’t that everything we wanted?

It’s funny. Not in a ‘haha’ way. More like a ‘this is pretty messed up’ way. All they wanted to do was get off the island. And now they actually are, it’s like they’re stumped. They had always known what they wanted to do. It’s the after they didn’t have time to think about.

“Simple checkups,” Darius says, voice firm. It breaks through the fog of confusion that’s slowly been creeping in. “General assessments. Anything else, we work out on a case by case basis. We need to make sure we’re not dying of some tropical infection-”

Ben shudders.

“-or have any broken bones that healed wrong.”

Everyone carefully doesn’t look at Yaz.

“What happens when our parents get here?” Sammy asks. She looks nervous, but hopeful.

“If they get here,” Kenji mutters. He looks anything but.

Darius doesn’t bother forcing a smile with his friends. They know him too well for it to ever work. “We take that case by case too,” he says. “Just like we did on the island. Together.”

Ben shifts uncomfortably, ear still attuned to the door. “What’s easier to face. Dinosaurs, or parents?”

It should be a joke, but it isn’t. It’s just that ‘this is pretty messed up’ version of funny again.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Brooklyn says. She’s just rephrasing what Darius said but it’s still another reassurance that they have time. Besides, the more pressing issue is the imminent checkups on the horizon. Brooklyn is fine with doctors most of the time- she constantly had to get various immunisations for her frequent travelling- but that feels like a lifetime ago.

Doctors…just another guarantee of life they lost access to on the island.

“Don’t let them split us up,” Yaz says firmly. Darius is right- they got through Jurassic World because they were together. Even when Ben was separated from them, he had Bumpy. “Groups of two or more.”

The plan settles into place. Everything feels easier when they have a foundation to work from. Even if it is as simple as ‘keep together’. Once you have that in place, you can go from there. They’d gotten by on the island with less. And as uncomfortable as Ben’s question had been, there is a winner between dinosaurs and people.

It just might not be a very clear one.

“How long until they come back for us?” Kenji’s eyes are fluttering closed. He’s tired- they all are- but they won’t sleep until they know it’s safe. “Darius?”

Darius’ internal clock is the best out of any of them, so when he says roughly ten minutes before their allotted alone time is over, they all know they can trust it. Ben waits patiently by the door to alert them of incoming people, and the others fall into a tense silence as the seconds tick down.

The room they’re in appears to have some kind of sound proofing since the usual hustle and bustle of a hospital barely seems to reach them. The lack of noise should be comforting, but to a group used to surviving thanks to recognising even the tiniest of sounds as a potential threat it almost feels like they’ve lost on of their senses. Like they’re hiding underwater while the T-Rex prowls past. There’s no way to know if it’s okay to surface. They just have to keep holding their breath and hope the predator gives up before their lungs do. Only in this instance the predator is a bunch of probably well-meaning hospital staff. A lot less more dangerous, but just as scary in the right (wrong) circ*mstances.

It's not okay. Not yet. Darius’ hands shake as he waits anxiously for this game to start up all over again. Nobody relaxes- they all remain tense in anticipation. One ill-timed nap will get you killed.

“Is anyone else’s heart beating real fast?” Sammy asks in a whisper.

Yaz nods into Sammy’s shoulder. “I keep thinking I have to run,” she admits.

“Adrenaline,” Darius says. “It kept us safe on the island.”

“It’ll do the same here,” Ben says fiercely. “Don’t let your guard down for a second.” Perhaps the most wild out of them all- and that’s saying something- it isn’t surprising that he may be viewing this hospital as more of a threat than could be considered logical. But hey, it isn’t logical to leave kids on a dinosaur infested island to die. Logic got thrown out the window a long time ago, way before any of them even actually did any window falling.

“We can’t fight these people,” Sammy says. Ben hadn’t actually say anything about fighting but the implication is clearly there. “They’re healers, Ben. They have our best interest at heart.”

“A lot of people said the same and did they ever actually?”

“No fighting,” Darius says. The urgency in his tone indicates their time is nearly up. Ben tenses as if he’s heard something, and gives a nod. “Let’s see…we go pairs. Less easier to break up. Sammy and Yaz, you’re together. Brooklyn and Kenji can pair off. Ben, you’re with me.”

“So you can keep an eye on me?” Ben scoffs.

Darius beams. “Glad we’re on the same page.”

It’s the last thing they get to say in private as there’s a knock on the door and it swings open before any of them can actually react. The head doctor is there- alone. Her determined look softens somewhat, though none of the teens quite understand what over. They’ve had to learn to read dinosaurs, and so their ability to read humans has gone way down. They can easily manage each other, but that’s it.

“We need to look you over,” she says firmly.

“Easy,” Darius lies.

Brooklyn puts on a perfectly practiced smile to back him up. “We just needed some time to process. Thank you for letting us have it.”

There’s no immediate change in the head doctor’s face this time, but her shoulders do relax slightly. At least body language is still easy enough to work out- dinosaur or human. “You’re very welcome. Will you come with me?”

“Can we stay together?” Sammy asks. She puts her best puppy dog eyes on, which are pretty hard to say no to- Yaz can attest to that.

“I’m afraid not,” the doctor says.

“Two of us then?” Sammy presses. Her eyes get wider- more pleading. “Please? We just…we don’t want to be alone.”

They all know the doctor will relent before she even says she will. It’s the way her shoulders slump even further, like she’s giving up. What sort of a sacrifice is it to let them stay with each other? They should tell her a few stories of their time on the island. Then she’ll really know what it means to give something up.

“Pairs,” the doctor says, like they’d known she would. “We can manage that.”

If she’s surprised by the speed in which they get into their groups, the doctor doesn’t say it. She gestures for them to follow her back down the corridor. She stops at two different doors and ushers a pair through each. First Yaz and Sammy. Then Brooklyn and Kenji. She guides Darius and Ben to the last one and follows them inside. The room they end up in is small- barely big enough to fit the examination bed, a couple of chairs, and row of cupboards, let alone three people. Darius can sort of understand why they’ve been split up. If all the rooms are like this, then there’s no way they would have all fit.

The door swings shut behind them, and the room suddenly feels even smaller, if that’s even possible. Tight spaces mean bad things on the island. It means being trapped, with nowhere to go. It means you can’t see what’s coming. It means if the dinosaurs get in…well…there isn’t anywhere to hide.

A low growl builds up in the back of Ben’s throat. Darius can’t blame him for it. He sort of wants to do the same. Still, he forces himself to press a warning hand to Ben’s shoulder. The growl cuts off, like maybe Ben didn’t even know he was doing it until Darius pointed it out.

“Please, sit,” the head doctor (man, Darius wishes he could remember her name) gestures to the chairs. There’s only two. If she means for Darius and Ben to take them, then she’ll be left standing. She’ll tower over them.

Neither Darius nor Ben move.

“Is that okay?” she presses.

No, Darius thinks faintly. Not okay. He’s trying his hardest to be agreeable, damnit. But there are limits. He can only give in to so much. To give her this much power over them…it’s…it’s not in his nature anymore.

“We’re okay to stand,” he says.

Not really okay, again, but they take the little things as best they can.

“Suit yourself,” the doctor says. Her face is unreadable. Her body language is calm. Darius wants to know her name. He wants them on an equal level. “But this might take a while.”

Ben visibly blanches, but Darius keeps his face as still as the doctor’s. As still as the calm before the storm.

“Right,” the doctor says. She consults a file Darius can’t remember her having before. He might be losing his observational skills. Or maybe he just left them behind at Jurassic World. “Just to be sure I’m correct, you’re Darius Bowman and Benjamin Pincus?”

“Ben.” Ben says.

“Yeah, that’s us.”

The doctor makes a note on her file. “As I said before, I’m Jennifer Diece.”

Darius feels something under his skin settle into place. The name sparks a memory of a moment that took place barely an hour ago, as Jennifer introduced herself. They’re on equal terms now- as best as they can be when he’s a kid and she’s a top-notch doctor. His attention sharpens as the need to remember who she is fades away. He aims it all at the conversation she’s still partaking in- oblivious to his fade out.

“And you were part of Camp Cretaceous that took place on Isla Nublar in correlation with Jurassic World?”

“Lucky us, huh?” Darius leans back against a spare patch of wall. Ben remains ramrod straight.

“You’ve been missing for a year,” Jennifer says bluntly. “You were reported dead.”

“You can never believe the news these days,” Ben deadpans. His eyes stare the doctor down as though she’s a dinosaur Ben needs to show dominance over. It’s a trait he never really lost after his time alone in the jungle. Darius has been on the end of it many times. He hasn’t been bothered by it in a while.

“What I’m getting at,” says Jennifer. “Is that you were in the wild for a very long time. That’s not good for anyone’s body, especially yours.”

“Because we’re weak?” Ben asks.

“Because you’re kids.”

Darius shrugs slightly. He hasn’t felt like a kid in a long time. Constant near death experiences and an expectation that every adult will either leave you or betray you will do that to you.

“We need to go through things as best we can,” Jennifer says. “Every injury. Everything you ate and drank. Every hint of illness you can remember having. Just questions for now. Data, for our files. Then we can take it from there.”

“…we work out on a case by case basis…”

“Just questions for now?” Darius repeats- a question he needs confirmation on.

“Unless I think you’re in immediate danger, just questions,” Jennifer says. It doesn’t sound like a promise, but it’s probably the next best thing. Darius decides the only thing they can do is to trust her.

He takes a seat.

Ben stiffens. His eyes dart to Darius- wide open in alarm.

Do I have to, he seems to be asking.

Darius gives his head a slight shake. Ben doesn’t visibly relax, but Darius knows it’s a reassurance for the boy.

“How about you take the spare seat?” Darius offers. It’s not his to give, really, but he’s curious to see if Jennifer will go for it.

To his surprise, she does. She pulls it over to herself and sets in down across from Darius.

“First things first,” she says, like nothing’s happened and she hasn’t just put herself on Darius’ level in a way that makes him want to trust her. “Diet on the island. What did you eat?”

An easy enough first question. Darius is glad she didn’t outright start with injuries. He isn’t keen to start explaining all the things that earnt them their scars.

“Bugs. Berries.” Ben says.

“Stale junk food. Tinned fruit.” Darius chips in.

“You all ate these?” Jennifer jots what they say down.

“Only Ben ate the bugs,” Darius says. “But yeah, anything we got, we shared.”

“Any bad reactions to anything? The berries?”

“Nope.”

“Did you have to ration it, or did you have plenty?”

Darius glances down at his wrists. He’s always been a skinny kid, but he knows bones aren’t meant to press against your skin like that. He doesn’t even need to look at Ben to know it’s the same for him. And for Brooklyn and Kenji and Sammy and Yaz. Their cheeks are gaunt, their faces hollow. All of them are suffering the effects of lack of food.

“We had to be careful,” he says. That’s code for we were always hungry.

“I’ll need to weigh you later,” Jennifer says. The way she’s scribbling down notes even though Darius barely said anything means she most likely understood the code. “But that can wait.”

It seems she’s doing to stick to her sort-of promise of only asking questions. Darius is curious to see if it will last or not.

“What about water?” she asks.

Ben snorts. “Well, we’re alive, aren’t we?”

Jennifer gives Ben the kind of look Darius’ mum used to give him when he was trying to lie about not being up all-night playing video games. He wonders if she has kids. Then, he decides he doesn’t care. He has to stop following these little trains of thoughts wherever they may go. The priority right now is looking after his family. Ben is clearly unsettled by being here- trapped in this room with no clear exit and a doctor demanding answers. Darius owes it to him to take the heat. Just like Ben had time and time again on the island. Darius will fight with words. Ben will fight with his spear.

“We drank from a running stream mostly,” Darius says. He keeps his voice clear and steady. I’m normal, he hopes it says. I’m okay.

He’s not, but…you know…baby steps.

“Any bad reactions to the water?”

“No,” Darius says. “Not that I can remember. And we found bottled water sometimes as well.”

Jennifer takes more notes. Ben looks longingly at the door. Darius shifts in his seat and wonders how the others are going. Ben is the most obvious wildcard in this situation, but Yaz is also a worry. Hopefully Sammy is helping her stay calm.

“Did either of you get sick at all?”

“I had a few stomach aches,” Darius says. “But that could have just been because we were hungry. I never actually threw up or got-uh-diarrhea or anything.”

“Any fevers?”

“Not that we paid attention to.”

The thing is, there hadn’t been time to be sick on the island. If you woke up with a headache or anything like that, well too bad. There was a camp to fortify and supplies to find and dinosaurs to look out for. Even Yaz with her hurt ankle had rarely stopped moving once they’d been able to stabilise it. So maybe they had had fevers, and upset stomachs, and all that sort of stuff, but they’d never let it keep them down. Darius should tell Jennifer this, but what’s the point? There’s no changing it now.

“And you, Ben?”

Ben shrugs. “Not really.”

For the most part, Darius knows this is true. But he also can’t speak for the time when they were separated from Ben. Who knows what had happened to him out there. Ben has filled in some gaps over time- mostly about the temporary defeat of Toro- but other things he keeps close to his chest. All of them have moments like that. Things they simply can’t bring themselves to share.

“That’s good news, but we may have to do some tests anyway,” Jennifer says. Her hand is almost a blur as she writes. “A lot of diseases can pass for innocuous stomach aches and such.”

Darius hopes this isn’t the case. It would suck to survive hungry dinosaurs and then go out over some advanced cold.

“Now, the most pressing issue,” Jennifer says. Her hand stills around her pen. She draws a breath in, as though she’s considering how tactful to be. “Any injuries sustained during your time? Minor or major, it doesn’t matter. I need to know them all.”

Darius holds back a flinch. This is where things get tricky.

Much like with being sick, there usually wasn’t any time to stop and take stock of any injury you could just push through. Scrapes and cuts and bruises were ignored in favour of survival. Any brief periods of unconsciousness barely registered. Yaz’s ankle and Sammy’s poisoning were extreme outliers. Anything else was simply…business. A quick rinse with water and maybe the odd bandage, and that was it.

“Um…” Darius begins hesitantly. “I mean…”

Jennifer gives him the same unimpressed look she levelled at Ben when he got sarcastic with her. “You can’t try to tell me you weren’t hurt at all. You’re covered in scars.”

Darius hasn’t seen himself in anything that wasn’t a dirty puddle of water or a fast-flowing stream in way too long. Looks didn’t matter on Isla Nublar. If Jennifer says he’s covered in scars, then he has to take her word for it. Sure, he knows the others certainly are, but who cared? Also…

“That’s not what I’m trying to do,” Darius says. “It’s just…we didn’t really pay attention to them when they happened.”

“Didn’t pay attention?” Jennifer’s tone is incredulous. Darius concedes internally that he’d probably sound the same if some scar covered kid had said the same to him. He concedes this, and yet her tone still angers him. She has no idea what they’ve been through. Chances are she’ll never understand. They can sit here and tell her things all they like, and it will be meaningless.

“Yeah,” he snaps. “Didn’t pay attention. I had more important things to think about, like staying alive.”

“Forgive me,” she says in a voice that doesn’t sound very apologetic at all. “But ignoring injuries and trying to stay alive seem like contradictory statements.”

“They’re not,” Darius says as calmly as he can, which really isn’t all that calm. “Not when it’s a choice between stopping to look at a cut, and getting far enough away from a dinosaur that wants to eat you.”

Jennifer opens her mouth, then shuts it. Her eyes pin Darius in place, gaze harsh and considering. She’s sizing him up, and Darius has no idea what she’s getting from it. Does she see him for the leader he often is, fiercely defending his and his friends’ lives? No- probably (definitely) not. She most likely sees him as a kid, one stupid enough to ignore injuries. It’s not fair- she’s the stupid one! If she would just listen to him- really listen to him- then there would no confusion, no need to size him up. He’s simply telling the truth. Minor injuries that didn’t threaten your life mattered less than massive dinosaurs that did. It wasn’t as if she ignored the ones that mattered. They patched up Yaz’s foot. They got the cure for the Scorpius Rex’s poison for Sammy!

“I fell out of a monorail,” Ben’s voice breaks through the beginning of Darius’ spiral. He speaks flatly, and fast. It shocks Darius right out of his panic and straight into confusion. Darius is taking the heat of Ben- he doesn’t need to speak. “Took some heavy hits from some flying dinosaurs- Pteranodons if you’d like the technical terms. Then hit the ground pretty hard.”

Darius stares at Ben. He doesn’t understand what’s going on.

“Toro got me pretty good in the arm,” Ben flicks up a finger for each injury he lists. “Got knocked out a fair few times. Was in a helicopter crash. Rolled down some hills. Rolled down some more hills. Nearly drowned in a river. Got knocked over a bunch. Got cut up a bunch. Oh, and a lot of these scars are sunburn. Do I need to test for melanoma?”

Oh…oh, Darius gets it now. Ben is doing exactly what Darius had been trying to do for him. He’s taking the attention of Jennifer so Darius can compose himself. It’s not a fight with a spear, and it’s not even the kind of verbal takedown Brooklyn is so fond of. It’s just Ben running his mouth so Darius won’t have to say anything else until he’s ready to.

Darius loves him for it.

Jennifer doesn’t speak once during Ben’s rambling, which Darius begrudgingly respects. She takes notes, and blinks at him every time he says something particularly shocking, but that’s it. Perhaps if Darius had just tried to scour his memories a bit better and offer them up like Ben is, they wouldn’t have ended up in that tense back and forth. Except Ben does seem to remember every injury he’s gotten. Darius doesn’t. He can’t look at his scars and see the stories behind them. They’re lost in a mismatch of memories that overlap and blur and confuse him every time he falls asleep.

Ben trails off eventually. Even Jungle Boy has to run out of injuries to list. Jennifer finishes writing, and fixes her eyes on Darius again. It seems she still won’t see Darius’ answer as acceptable. Ben has taken the heat off him briefly, but in a way he’s also doomed Darius. Darius says he can’t remember his injuries. Ben proves he can. Now Jennifer will expect Darius to do what Ben did and start listing them. All Ben has been able to do is give Darius time- time he’s wasted by getting stuck in a useless train of thought about his own failures.

“I didn’t get any major injuries,” he says clearly. If he speaks slowly and reasonably, then she’ll have no reason to press him further, right? “I know I got banged up a bit. Cuts and bruises. Some gashes from dinosaurs. But it really did just blur together. If it wasn’t going to kill me, then there wasn’t time to linger on it.”

Jennifer sighs, and sets her pen down. “If you say so, then I’ll believe you,” she says. “But you’ll need a full examination to make sure you didn’t overlook anything serious. Adrenaline’s a funny thing. It can hide a lot from us.”

Darius hides a scowl. He knows exactly what adrenaline does to you. He saw it keep Yaz on her feet far longer than should have been possible. He saw it stop Sammy from realising the Scorpius Rex had gotten her until it was almost too late.

He saw it keep them alive.

“Just questions for now,” he reminds her. “Are we done?”

Jennifer pauses, and then nods. “We’re done.”

Chapter 2: To a place where my hope died along with my crew

Chapter Text

When Darius and Ben get back to the room they’ve been given, holding bottles of water and wrapped sandwiches that Jennifer gave them, Sammy and Yaz are waiting for them. They’re both on the same bed, curled around each other in a way that makes Darius feel like they’re intruding on something very personal. Still, when the boys enter, both the girls break apart and sit up.

Darius scans them up and down, trying to see if anything has happened to them when they were separated. He instantly sees the fresh bandages wrapped around Yaz’s ankle, and his eyes certainly don’t miss the tiny wad of cotton balls taped against the inside of Sammy’s right arm.

“What did they do?” he barely dares ask.

“Asked us some questions, mostly,” Sammy says. Her comforting southern drawl settles Darius down somewhat. If there was cause for alarm, surely she’d sound more upset. “Fed us and gave us water. They wanna X-Ray Yaz’s ankle, which I think is a great idea, but they just wrapped it for now and told her to stay off it.”

“Bit late for that, I think,” Yaz says. She turns her foot this way and that, considering it. “Oh, and they took some blood from Sammy because of the whole getting poisoned thing.”

“I told them it was ages ago, but they insisted,” Sammy shrugs in a ‘what can you do’ way. “Good thing I’m not scared of needles!”

“Do you think there’ll be anything to find?” Ben asks. “Cause if there is and they can use it then-”

“Why would they want to use my blood?”

“Not the blood, the venom in the blood,” Ben says. “They could use it to manufacture some kind of advanced toxin.”

“Not everyone is out to play with science like that,” Darius says, but his heart isn’t in it. Time and time again they’ve seen people do just that- playing with science without caring about the consequences. A hospital is just another seemingly innocuous place that will probably end up betraying them. It’s a pattern at this point.

“I’m sure they won’t find anything,” Yaz says. “Like Sammy said, it’s been ages.”

“So why’d you make them test me?” Sammy asks.

“To be sure,” Yaz says. Her cheeks flame red. “I was worried.”

“Aw, babe.”

They’re in a cramped room with plastic beds and the smell of harsh chemicals burning their noses, and yet it almost feels like they’re back on the island putting their heads together to solve one problem or another. They just need Brooklyn and Kenji to get back and then it will almost be like nothing has changed. Just a quick location switch but they’re still together, and that’s what matters most. They took down dinosaurs and corrupt hunters and mad scientists because of that one key thing. The six of them against the world. Always.

Right?

Except Darius can’t forget the grey cloud hanging over them- as rapidly oncoming and frighteningly oppressive as an Isla Nublar storm. They can try and avoid it all they like, but it will still hit them in the end.

Their parents will be coming.

They’ve been right to be fearful of this moment. None of them live in the same state. Their homes are all over the country with enough space between them to make in person meetups near impossible. That is of course, if you act under the assumption that their parents will even let them do that. You lose your kids for six plus months and you’re going to let them out of your sight after that? Well, maybe Kenji’s dad would, but he’s a special case. The rest of them will likely end up smothered in bubble wrap and locked in their rooms just so their parents can feel safe.

Their time in this hospital is most likely the last time it will ever be like this again- just them doing their best to survive.

They’ve spent a lot of time talking about what they missed, and the things they wanted to do when they got home. And obviously that means they’ve discussed this very moment happening. They’ve made plans- because if there was one thing that always made them feel better it was making plans- about how to stay in contact, but there’s always a difference between the saying and the doing. Not only that, but those plans rely entirely on the things they can do. They don’t account for adult interference.

A pit abruptly opens up in Darius’ stomach, and he thinks he can feel his body turn itself inside out and fall down into it. His feet stumble on the linoleum floor- so different from the dirt and grass and rocks he’s grown used to- and he barely manages to catch himself on a bed. The sheets scratch at his hand as he grasps at them, confused by their artificial comfort in contrast to the blankets he’s used to- patchy and old and soft from constant use and dewy dampness. His ears strain for a familiar sound that he can ground himself on. The slight rustles of trees in the wind, or the faint rush of water running through a creek. This silence is too much. It swallows up everything- nullifying noise instead of amplifying it. Really the only thing he can pick up on is the uncomfortable beat of his heart in his chest.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

It echoes inside him, like the footsteps of a T Rex as it grows closer and closer. It’s a sound that induces fear- that begs you to run before it catches up with you. But it’s coming from inside him so there’s nowhere to go. He can’t escape himself. It’d be like running from a shadow.

“Darius?”

He needs more air in his body. Air keeps him moving, keeps him smart. If he just breathes a little faster than he’ll be able to keep going. Run faster, longer. Maybe he can run away from himself. Just a bit more air, then-

“Darius!”

His breath catches in his throat and he almost chokes on it. His chest burns as he coughs his way through it, and his eyes clear- when had they clouded over? He can see Kenji in front of him, which doesn’t make much sense to Darius. Last he’d checked, Kenji and Brooklyn were still off with the doctors.

“Easy, dude, easy,” Kenji says. His cadence reminds Darius of Brandon, which nearly sets Darius off all over again, because if their parents are on the way then surely Brandon is too. They’re about to be pulled apart and he’s not ready for it, he’s not, he’s not.

He needs them. Needs them all to survive. Without even a single one of them, he’d be dead.

“Sorry,” he gasps out. He struggles to get control of himself again. If this had happened back on the island, he’d probably be dinosaur dinner by now. Barely twenty-four hours back in society and he’s already slacking off. “Just…”

“Hey, Darius, it’s okay,” Brooklyn says. She’s crouched down next to Kenji, the two of them all up in Darius’ space in a way that settles him, because it lets him know they’re there. “You don’t have to explain yourself. This is a huge shock to the system. We’re allowed to freak out a little.”

“Try a lot,” Darius says. It’s a poor attempt at a joke, but Kenji does him the favour of laughing.

“You should have seen Kenji when they asked to do a blood test,” Brooklyn says. “I thought he was going to pass out.”

“Was not,” Kenji defends himself immediately. “I just got…a headache.”

“Well, it came on very fast,” Brooklyn says teasingly. “I told them to wait a bit. Though,” she twists to look at Sammy. “I see they didn’t with you.”

“Just checkin’ to make sure there’s no lingering dino poison,” Sammy says. “Yaz insisted.”

“Hey, if we’ve got the resources to stay safe, we should use them,” says Yaz, folding her arms firmly.

Darius knows what they’re doing. They’re trying to distract him from his thoughts- draw him back into the moment where they’re all here, poking fun at each other and playfully bantering. Normally it would work, but all it does now is remind him that he’ll be losing this soon, and the spiral almost starts all over again. He digs his nails into the palm of his hand and pretends he’s being chewed on by a Compy. Better this physical pain that the emotional one that is still forming a black hole inside him and trying to pull him in.

He takes a breath- a slow one- and says, “does it feel like everything’s falling apart for you guys as well?”

There’s a silence as his words register. Darius can’t look any of them in the eye. He’s too afraid to see his own failures reflected in their faces. They’re here trying to cheer him up and he simply can’t let it happen.

“Well, I wasn’t going to say anything about it,” it’s Kenji who breaks the silence. It sounds like there’s a lump in his throat. Darius sneaks a look up and thinks he sees the beginnings of tears forming in his eyes. He takes a step back, leaving only Brooklyn in Darius’ space.

“I thought it was better if I didn’t say anything,” Yaz admits. She draws her knees up to her chin and rests it on them. Her dark eyes peer over the top. There’re no tears to see there but that doesn’t mean there isn’t grief. “I…”

She trails off, apparently unable to say anything else on the matter.

“Falling apart how?” Brooklyn asks. There’s none of her judgement in the question, just curiosity. “We’re safe, right?”

“We’re gonna be split up,” Darius whispers. “That’s what’s falling apart. Us.”

Once again, the room goes quiet as the others process his words. Once again, Darius can’t bring himself to look at them.

“Hey,” Sammy says, trying to sound cheerful. “We planned for this, remember? I still remember all your socials and emails.”

But it’s not enough. Darius needs them at his side, so he knows they’re safe. He needs their quiet breathing as they all fall asleep, so he knows it’s okay for him to do the same. Right now- in this very moment- he’s proven how much he needs them because his brain decides to go full panic without them to calm it down.

“It won’t be the same,” Ben voices it for Darius. His voice is purposefully blank. The more wild Ben seemed to grow, the more control he got over his emotions. Sometimes Darius fears Ben has lost them altogether. Other times he knows that’s a stupid thought to have. They all feel strongly, they just wear it differently.

“No,” Sammy says. She shakes her head to emphasise it. “No. After everything we’ve been through, a few lousy miles of distance isn’t going to break us apart. I won’t let it.”

Yaz laughs without humour. “Try a few thousand miles,” she says bitterly. “I know I’m a fast runner but there’s no getting around that.”

“There’re cars. Planes! There’re ways to get to each other,” Sammy fights back.

“And if our parents say no?” Kenji says. “I don’t know about you guys but…it’ll be a miracle if my dad lets me leave. Not because he cares, but…”

Because he doesn’t, Darius thinks.

“It’s been so long since I saw my mum,” Ben says listlessly. “Who knows what she’ll do? I certainly don’t.”

“We can’t talk like this,” Brooklyn joins in on Sammy’s side. “We can’t act like it’s already over. Nothing’s changed yet.”

“Everything’s changed.” Darius says. He stares around at the room they’re in. White, sterile, cramped. Stale air and harsh chemicals. It couldn’t be further than the island. There’s no fresh green forestry, no gentle breeze.

No danger.

Well…no danger from dinosaurs. Darius still can’t make up his mind about the staff, and he certainly isn’t under any kind of illusion that their imminent departure from each other is a good, safe thing.

“I’d do anything for you guys,” Brooklyn says. “I’d move across the country for you. I’d run away from home for you. So don’t…don’t act like that doesn’t matter. Let’s give ourselves some credit.”

“I’m not trying to say none of that matters,” Darius says. He can feel himself losing control of his volume and he fights to keep his voice steady. “We can say we’ll do all that, and I believe we want to, but we’re just kids!”

“Kids who stayed alive on Isla Nublar,” Sammy reminds him. “For over a year, Darius.”

It sounds like a lot when you put it like that, but also it sounds like nothing. It’s a long time when you live it, but then you look back and realise it’s just one tiny part of your life.

“We can’t act like the worst case scenario is going to happen,” Brooklyn says firmly. It’s the voice she uses to finish arguments and stop Kenji from some of his more extreme pranks. Normally it works on Darius, but it feels different now. Like somehow being off the island has robbed it of its impact.

“The worst case scenario always happens for us,” Ben snaps. He’s got his back to the wall near the door again. “A dozen or so failed escape attempts not clue you into that?”

“We got out, didn’t we?” Brooklyn cries.

It’s on the tip of Darius’ tongue to say it. He could just open his mouth and let it fall out. Drop it like a bomb and make an escape in the immediate chaos.

I wish we didn’t.

He doesn’t, though. Darius swallows the words back down and stares at his hands as they shake. He owes it to everyone not to voice something like that. In fact, he owes it to them to stop this conversation right now. Somehow- even though he’s the youngest- he found himself as their leader because of his dinosaur expertise. He kept them together as best he could. Through losing Ben and losing their chances to escape. Through the constant breaking down of the boat as they struggled to make it work. Through the constant dinosaur attacks that occurred almost every single day. He’s got them off the island, but the job isn’t over yet.

He can break down later, when he’s alone.

“Yeah,” he says. He can’t fake a smile, but he softens his face as best he can. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Yaz and Ben exchange a glance, but say nothing. Brooklyn looks at him for a second, and then she shakes her head. “No,” she says. “I mean, no, don’t just wave this one away, D. What’s this really about?”

“Nothing,” he mutters. “It’s fine. You’re right.”

“No,” Brooklyn repeats. “We have to talk about these things. Especially now.”

“I’m just a bit stressed,” Darius says. Try a lot stressed, but he’s always tried to downplay his feelings. It made things easier. For who, he can’t quite say.

“But why are you being so pessimistic about it?” Brooklyn says. Somehow this conversation has turned into just them, shooting words back and forth at each other while the others watch like they’re a particularly interesting game of tennis.

“I’m just trying to be realistic.”

“That’s not what this is.”

“So you get to tell me how I’m feeling?”

“Maybe!” Brooklyn bites out. “Because it’s not like you ever will. Come on, Darius. We’re off the f*cking island! You stopping to actually tell us what’s going on isn’t going to cost us our lives.”

“I don’t want to leave you guys!”

It bursts out of him as a sob of desperation.

“I don’t want us to just split up and make the best out of long distance contact,” Darius can barely hold the tears back. “That’s not enough for me. The only way I ever felt truly safe on the island was because you guys were there. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to pretend emails are enough. I know I should be happy we’re gonna see our parents again but I’m not, because I know I can’t do it without you. I just can’t.”

Once again, Darius has rendered his family silent. Third time unlucky. This time though, he’s able to look at them. He takes in Yaz’s clenched fists and Sammy’s trembling lip. Ben’s hopeless eyes and Kenji’s sorrowful gaze. And most of all, he stares at Brooklyn’s shocked face.

“Darius,” she begins.

“Don’t,” he cuts her off as softly as he can. “There’s no fixing this one, Brooklyn. I’m sorry. I should have just said it from the start.”

“I mean, you did,” Kenji says. He’s on a bed now, still staring at Darius with those sombre eyes. “We just kinda tried to convince you otherwise.”

Darius knits his fingers together and shrugs. He’s tired of his hands shaking, and he’s tried of feeling like getting off the island was the wrong thing to do. They should be celebrating- partying like they had the first time they’d realised the boat would be able to get them out of there. There shouldn’t be this dark cloud hovering over them.

They shouldn’t have been left on that island in the first place.

It’s this weird game where you move backwards through the things that have gone wrong and the problems that they have and end up squarely at that one inciting incident- they were left behind. You can play ‘this was bad’ and ‘that shouldn’t have happened’ but in the end you still have to admit that there’s one main root of the tree that is their new messed up lives. Darius doesn’t want to leave the others, not when that’s already happened to them and it was so, so awful.

“Okay,” Brooklyn says. She’s schooled her expression into something less taken aback. “Yeah. I…I don’t want us to split up either. But…we don’t know what’s going to happen, yet. We should enjoy our time together now instead of worrying about the future.”

“The future’s so close though,” Yaz says.

“Nuh uh,” Brooklyn says. “That counts as worrying. We’re here, right now. Together. Let’s just live in that moment, okay?”

The moment’s kinda sucky, if Darius is allowed to be honest. The inevitability of invasive tests and more probing questions looms just as large as the arrival of their families does. Not to mention the authorities are probably going to come knocking as well. Hell, they’ll probably be set upon by lawyers desperate to keep them quiet about the whole ‘oops we left you behind on a dinosaur infested island for a year’ thing. It’s not just a storm cloud threatening them on the horizon- there’s a tsunami and a hurricane brewing as well.

Still…Darius appreciates what Brooklyn’s trying to do. He wishes with all his heart he could make it happen for her. Maybe if he just tries hard enough, he can make all his worries go away.

(He can’t. He can’t make those fears go away. And they’re so much scarier than a dinosaur because of that. He can outrun a stampeding herd. He can’t escape the inevitable separation.)

“Hey, how about a game of cards?” Kenji breaks the tension. “Is that living in the moment?” He’s been rooting around in a tiny bedside table that kept two of the beds sperate. He waves a pack at them enticingly. It should make Darius laugh, but he wants to cry.

They hadn’t had cards on the island. And even if they had, would they have used them? There was no time for leisure like that. Maybe…maybe it would have encouraged them to relax. But then maybe that relaxation would have killed them.

“Sure, Kenji,” Darius said. There’s a lump in his throat he tries to swallow down. “That sounds great.”

Kenji scrambles up onto the bed next to Darius and shuffles around until there’s enough space between them to lay cards down. Brooklyn perches next to him, checking if that’s okay with a slight raising of her eyebrows. Darius nods. At the go ahead, Brooklyn climbs the rest of the way on. Sammy slides off her bed and starts pushing at it. Without one of those little tables to get in the way, she has it pressed against Darius’ in no time. She’d barely moved it a few feet but Yaz grips the sheets tightly and feigns terror as if Sammy had pushed her down a hill. Sammy hops back on and she and Yaz arrange themselves into the circle that’s slowly forming. Ben watches this from the door.

“Come on, Ben,” Brooklyn says. “A dinosaur’s not gonna burst through the door.”

Ben huffs. “What about the Compy that stowed away on the boat?”

“Dude, that thing fell off halfway across the ocean,” Kenji says. “Remember?”

“Fell off?” Sammy pouts.

“Fine, I might have pushed it,” Kenji says. “But it was fair game, it ate my berries.”

Yaz leans over to whisper in Darius’ ear. “I’m pretty sure I saw Ben eat his berries.”

“He can’t push Ben overboard though,” Darius whispers back. It’s a step in the direction of being normal but it still makes his heart ache. He’s about to lose this.

As he and Yaz have whispered, Ben has crept over to the beds. He climbs on tentatively and perches right on the very edge. It’s probably the best they’re going to get from him. Especially since where he is means he has to keep his back to the door.

“What are we playing?” he asks.

Everyone looks around at each other. Darius bites back a scowl of frustration. Why do they feel so out of sync? If they were on the island, Kenji or Yaz would have just picked a game and they all would have gone along with it, dinosaur attack permitting. Why is it so different now? It’s still them, right? For however long they have left, it’s still them. So why does everything feel so awkward?

“Go fish,” Darius says. It’s not the usual life or death decisions he’s forced to make, but it almost feels like it. He scoops the cards up and starts shuffling them awkwardly. After a moment, Kenji reaches out with gentle hands and takes them from Darius. He works much quicker and in no time, everyone has a small pile of five cards in front of them.

“Hang on, isn’t it meant to be seven?” Sammy says.

“No, it’s definitely five,” Kenji says defensively. He grips his cards like he thinks Sammy will take them away from him, which is silly. She’s talking about adding more, not taking some. Still, Darius manages a smile as Sammy levels an unimpressed look at Kenji.

“Me and my sisters always played with seven.”

“I always play with five.”

“I think you can do both,” Brooklyn interjects. “Like, you do seven if there’s not many players. But five if there is.”

It stops the ‘not fight’ in its tracks as both Kenji and Sammy shrug and decide that sounds right. With that settled, everyone finally looks at their cards. Yaz instantly puts down a pair, and Ben clasps his close to his chest so nobody can possibly peek. Darius looks at what he’s ended up with. A six, a king, an ace, a five, and a…

“Oh,” he says. “Kenji, you forgot to take the jokers out.”

“Oops,” Kenji says. “Here, I can reshuffle.”

“No,” Yaz says, obviously. She already has a pair down after all. “Whoever has a joker can just pick up a card each from the deck. And if you pick one up, just chuck it aside and pick again.”

Darius doesn’t move though. He just keeps looking down at his cards, and the grinning face of the joker as it stares back up at him. He shouldn’t read into the symbolism of a collection of randomly assigned cards. He shouldn’t.

He does.

He feels like a joke right now. He feels too old and too young all at once. He feels like a failed leader, an overthrown king. He feels alone.

“Darius?” Kenji says uncertainly. “You gonna swap cards?”

“Huh? Sure,” still, Darius can’t let go of the cards. It’s like someone’s tripped a gear in his brain and his hands won’t move.

“Give it here,” Brooklyn reaches out and without even needing to see, manages to pluck the joker right out of his hand. She tosses it aside and replaces it with a card from the top of the deck. Darius looks at it- another six.

With hands that tremble, he puts the pair down. The six of hearts- the second card he picked up- rests on top. It’s literally just a stupid card- one in a deck of many more just like it. And yet he can’t help but look around at the six of them huddled together on two hospital beds. He really doesn’t want to play. Brooklyn is right in that they should make the time they have left together count, but Darius just wants to mourn. He needs time to build up defence mechanisms so it’ll hurt just that little bit less when it’s over.

Darius still feels like a leader though, somewhat. And he knows what his friends (family) need. Him digging in his heels in won’t help anybody- it won’t even help him really. This game- this stupid little thing that’s somehow the first normal thing they’ve gotten the chance to do in a year- is what they need. Or rather, what they want. The wants and needs are very different here.

“Who’s going first?” he hears himself ask. His voice almost sounds normal. “Not me or Yaz.”

“Why not me?” Yaz mock scowls.

“We already got pairs,” Darius says.

“I’ll go first,” Brooklyn says. She fans her cards out in front of her face and blinks over the top of them as if she’s in a high stakes’ poker game. “Kenji, got any queens?”

Kenji doesn’t even have to say anything, Darius can already see the answer all over his face. He isn’t surprised when Kenji hands the queen over. He can read these people so well- even Ben with his stifled emotions and Yaz with her defensive walls. He’ll more than likely lose this once they’re all separated. After all, he can’t tell what anyone else in this place is thinking. He’s only lucky enough to be able to read his friends because of their time spent living in each other’s pockets.

Darius lets the game play out around him, making no effort to try and remember who has what cards. He gets lucky once or twice, but in the end everyone is just playing much smarter than he is. Yaz claims the win by one pair, which Sammy blames on her ending up with two matching cards in the first place, so then everyone blames Kenji who dealt. Darius wonders if the bickering feels forced to anyone else, or if it’s just him.

He'd told Brooklyn he was being a realist, but maybe he is just being pessimistic.

“We should get some sleep,” he says, before anybody can suggest another game. He can feel how tired he is in his bones, but he’s mostly been ignoring it because it isn’t anything he isn’t used to. “Before they come back and make us do actual tests. It’s been a long day.”

Yaz sighs. “Try long year,” she says.

You didn’t sleep well on Isla Nublar. You just didn’t.

“I’ll take first watch,” Ben says. He slips off the bed as easily as he’d perched on it, and creeps back over to the door.

“Hey, no,” Sammy says. “We don’t have to do that here.”

“I’m taking first watch,” Ben repeats. There’s an edge to his voice.

“Good idea,” Darius says. “I’ll take second.”

Brooklyn shoots him a look, but he shakes his head softly. Ben needs this, and this is something Darius can give him. Darius will let Ben wake him up, and then once Ben has fallen asleep, Darius can as well.

Sammy rolls back onto her bed fully. Yaz flops down next to her. It’s a tight squeeze- and an unnecessary one considering the four other empty beds- but neither complain. They don’t push themselves apart from the others either. Kenji sweeps the cards back up into their little box and tosses them lightly across the room. They bounce off the edge of the bedside table and thud to the floor. Kenji shrugs, and lies down. He’s much taller than both Brooklyn and Darius, and it doesn’t leave much room at all. Darius is considering getting up and moving to give them space, but Kenji pulls him down before he can.

“Sleepover,” he says.

“We’ve been having a permanent sleepover for the last year,” Brooklyn says from Kenji’s other side.

“One more night won’t hurt then,” Kenji says. Then, “ow!”

Brooklyn must have hit him. Darius can picture her curled slightly to avoid hanging over the edge, or maybe she’s snuck a stray arm or leg onto Yaz and Sammy’s bed. He lies ramrod straight, teetering between solid mattress and open air. He really should just get up and push another bed closer, but he doesn’t move. It’s not like they’d ever slept like this in their camp, but it still reminds him of their makeshift home anyway. They’d been so close there. Darius had fallen asleep to the sound of Kenji snoring and Sammy tossing and turning. Brooklyn’s occasional sleep talking and Yaz’s strangely loud breathing. Ben and Bumpy’s synchronised snorts.

He wonders what the others identified him by when he slept. He hopes it isn’t the small cries and whimpers he occasionally let out when he was having nightmares. Maybe they simply didn’t notice.

Ben flicks off the light. Its harsh fluorescent glow cuts out so abruptly that spots dance across Darius’ vision. He hasn’t been in true darkness for so long. The stars and the moon and Ben’s occasional safety fires kept camp illuminated. He stares up at the ceiling he knows is there. A real roof above them, keeping them safe.

He misses the misshapen wood and drooping branches of their treehouse.

“Goodnight guys,” he says, even if he has no real idea what time it is.

(He does- he’s always been good with time. It’s just gone eight thirty at night, a little earlier than they’re used to but understandable given everything that’s gone on today.)

“Night fam,” Kenji says.

“Yeah, what he said,” says Yaz.

“Don’t let the Compys bite,” Brooklyn says, which makes Sammy laugh.

“Goodnight y’all,” she says. “I love you guys.”

“Yeah,” someone whispers, and maybe it’s because Darius suddenly can’t keep his eyes open, and his ears feel like they’ve been stuffed with leaves but he doesn’t know who says it. “Love you too.”

A hole opens up underneath Darius and he tumbles into a nightmare.

Chapter 3: Now I'm staring down at the darkest abyss

Chapter Text

He’s sitting at the edge of their treehouse, legs dangling over the side. Below him he can hear the sounds of Brooklyn and Yaz discussing their inventory. He leans forward to peer over and-

Miles of landscape rushes by as the monorail cuts a path above the dense forestry. Wind tugs at his hair as he stares at the ground that feels so far away and yet so close. There’s a crashing noise, like the sound of breaking glass and he turns his head to see-

The monorail is above him now and he’s falling away from it. Pale hands grab frantically at nothing. The cabin he’s fallen from is empty. Nobody’s in it. There’s nobody to take his hand and help him back to-

His back hits the ground and pain ricochets through his whole body. He’s screaming for help but nobody hears him. Nobody except-

He’s huge now, a predator built for killing. He towers over the boy in front of him, scrawny and small and weak. He opens his mouth and bears his razor-sharp teeth at the boy. The boy screams and tries to cover his head but it’s too late. His jaw comes down and-

Ben snaps awake.

He bolts upright in an instance, muscle tense in preparation for fight or flight. His eyes scan the darkness and strain to pick up any sign of a threat he needs to dispel. It’s strange- it’s too dark. He can’t seem to find any light to make things out. He curls his hands into fists and is surprised by the crispness of the sheets he drags with him. This doesn’t make sense. None of their blankets have this kind of sensation. They’re all old and bedraggled and way too soft. Which means…

Right.

The world clicks into place and Ben’s body shifts with it. He relaxes ever so slightly, though he keeps his ears metaphorically pricked for a warning sign that somebody’s coming. He’s not letting a doctor or a nurse sneak up on them. Because that’s who would sneak up on him. Because they’re in a hospital. Because they made it off the island.

Ben has never woken up thinking he’s somewhere else before. He doesn’t like the sensation. It makes him feel all adrift. He feels his fingers start to twitch and shake, even if he can’t see them. That’s something new as well. Ben doesn’t like making meaningless movements. They’re a waste of energy that could be better spent on running for his life. Only…yeah…he doesn’t have to do that anymore. So logically, his fingers are allowed to twitch.

He sits on them and crushes them against the mattress so they won’t move.

There’s no clock to tell him the time in the room so Ben has no way of knowing how long he’d been asleep. Darius had woken up just like he’d promised he would, and Ben had gone to an empty bed and lain awake for a few restless minutes before he’d finally dropped off- straight into a nightmare it seemed. He doesn’t feel any less tired than he had right before he’d gone under, so it can’t have been long. He scans the darkness again, hoping to see something he’d missed the first time. He’s starting to make out shapes- the others curled up tightly around each other on the beds. One of them seems to be sitting upright. Darius on watch? Except whoever it is, they haven’t noticed that Ben is up. So maybe it’s not Darius. Maybe it’s an enemy who’s infiltrated them and now Ben needs to take them down.

No, no. That’s just stupidly paranoid, even for him. It’s the dream. It’s unsettled him. That’s all. He hasn’t had a nightmare about the monorail fall in a long time, that’s why he’s so on edge. It’s got him thinking like he’s right back there, just a few days after the initial incident and weeks before he finally started to gain some initiative. That awful stretch of time where every noise signalled danger, and every shape in the darkness meant exactly the same- that’s where his mind has taken him. Back to then.

He strains his eyes staring into the darkness to work out what that shape is, because even if he knows what’s going on with his frazzled mind, that hasn’t stopped it from being frazzled anyway. Ben had a therapist once- a long time ago before his dad had left when his parents didn’t know how to handle how afraid of everything he was- and he’d said identifying when your brain was being illogical was a good thing. He’d said that usually made it stop. Ben wishes he could find that therapist now and tell him that was wrong. Ben knows what he’s feeling right now is illogical, just like the therapist had said. It’s just not stopping it.

“Ben?” a voice answers him before he can decide to get up and go on the prowl.

Huh.

“Yaz?”

“Hang on,” Yaz says, unaware of how much hearing her voice has set Ben at ease. “I’m coming over.”

He hears some rustling, and then the shape moves in his direction. Now that Ben knows it’s Yaz, he feels a little better, but he can’t help tensing up all over again. What if there was a dinosaur that could mimic voices, like a-

Yaz drops down in front of him and stops the train of thought (monorail of thought?) before it can run any further. Ben can sort of make out her face through the dark, but barely. He catches a glimpse of her eyes. He hears her legs move as she crosses them over.

“Whatcha doing up?” she asks. “Keeping watch didn’t tire you out enough?”

Ben’s hands are starting to go numb. “Nah,” he says. “You know me. Two hours of shut-eye is enough.”

“It’s barely been ten minutes since you lay down,” Yaz says, answering the question Ben had silently asked himself before. It sparks another one though.

“What are you doing up?” he asks accusingly. “Darius said he’d take next watch. Were you guys lying to me?”

“I woke up when he did,” Yaz says. “Couldn’t go back to sleep. Said I’d go instead.”

Ben eyes her suspiciously. Yaz likes her sleep- it’s a well known fact. Had she had a nightmare like he had? She’d mentioned them once, right? Not to Ben or to Darius, but to the others- and then Ben had overheard them talking about it. He probably should have been hurt by the exclusion, but he hadn’t.

“Nightmare?” he dares to ask.

He can see Yaz stiffen- barely- but then settle down almost instantly after. “Not this time,” she says.

“What was it then?” Ben presses. “Sheets too scratchy for you?”

It startles a laugh out of her, a quiet thing that sounds louder in the silence of the room. “They’re pretty rough, aren’t they?” he can hear a smile in her voice. “Makes you miss the old ones, huh?”

Ben misses Bumpy, not the stupid old blankets, but he keeps his mouth shut. He’s already given them enough grief when it came to him and Bumpy. It’s best if they all believe he’s made his peace with her being out of his life.

(Maybe that’s why he’s having nightmares about the monorail fall. Because Bumpy isn’t there anymore.)

“No,” Yaz says suddenly. “It’s not the sheets. It’s…it’s all this. Everything here,” she waves a hand around like a tiny gesture can encompass everything they’re going through. “We’re back home and that’s weird. We’re in a hospital and that’s super weird. And they’ve left us alone. We’re just…lying here. In the dark. We had a check up and some food but that’s it. No IVs or heart rate monitors and sh*t. How can we be back in the real world and yet…it still feels like it’s just us.”

“It is what we wanted,” Ben says, but he gets it. It does still feel like somehow they’re on their own. Time blurs around him- the windowless walls of their room seem to keep them trapped in stasis. Darius isn’t awake to keep them posted with his weird internal clock that reminds Ben of a character in an old 90’s book series he used to read. They’re isolated once again.

“Do you think they’ll tell us when our parents get here?” Yaz asks quietly.

Ben frowns. “Why wouldn’t they?”

“We’re a commodity,” says Yaz. “They could sell us to the media first.”

“I’ll bite them if they do,” Ben says. He’s not joking.

He and Yaz haven’t talked like this since Ben encouraged her about confessing her feelings to Sammy. It feels weird to miss something he’d rarely done, but as they whisper together, he finds he had. He’s glad to have this moment with her again, even if this time they’re talking about something a lot more depressing than Yaz’s romantic feelings.

“I just feel like everything that’s happening is out of our control,” Yaz says bitterly. “I don’t like it.”

No, Ben thinks. Neither does he. It makes sense, of course. They’ve been self-sufficient for so long. They can’t magically hand that independence back over and be normal kids again- lesser beings in the eyes of adults.

“Do you wish we were back on the island?” he asks. It’s a thought that’s been hovering over him all day. It’s unsurprising, considering how close he’d once come to willingly staying there. He’d lost that internal confliction at one point, but now he genuinely can’t say what he’d choose to do if given the choice again. It sounds to him like Yaz might be having the same-

“No,” Yaz says sharply, fiercely. “How can you- no! Of course I don’t wish that.”

Ben chews on the inside of his cheek. He really is no good at working with emotions. He supposes that’s why he wasn’t included in that original discussion about nightmares. “But you wish we had the same freedom we had on the island?”

“Sure,” Yaz says, though she sounds anything but. “Maybe it’s that.”

The two of them fall silent for a moment. A heavy cloud of exhaustion presses at Ben insistently. He was lying when he told Yaz he was fine running on two hours of sleep. He needs at least four times that amount- plus extra to make up for all of it he lost on the island, and the boat. His stupid brain just won’t give it to him.

“I just wish we could stay together,” Yaz says. It’s the same problem that had plagued Darius that afternoon- nearly starting a fight with Brooklyn before Darius had backed down and pretended to be okay, like that had fooled anyone. “Otherwise none of this will feel like it was worth it.”

Ben wishes he could do what Brooklyn did, and give some inspiring speech or stamp his foot in protest. He can’t though, because he feels the same. The only thing he can do is nod miserably, because if their bonds can be broken so easily, then why bother to form them in the first place?

“You should get some sleep,” Yaz says when Ben doesn’t say anything. Their talk is over. Ben thinks about arguing, but decides there are more important fights in the future to dig his heels in over. He doesn’t want to argue with Yaz. He’s tired- tired in the body and tired in the mind. He hasn’t slept without Bumpy before. He supposes he might not be able to.

“Wake someone else up soon,” Ben says as he lies back down, finally freeing his hands which have long since gone numb. He wasn’t wrong to point out the sheets. They feel strange underneath his body. The only thing stopping him from jumping up and tearing at his skin is Yaz- still sitting on the bed and close enough that he can feel the dip of the mattress from her weight.

“I will,” Yaz says. He still can’t see her properly, but he can feel her eyes on him. He can always tell when he’s being stared at. “Night, Ben.”

“Night, Yaz.”

He closes his eyes, but sleep doesn’t come. He keeps lying there in the hopes that it will, but it seems Ben won’t be getting any rest tonight. He just has to pretend he has, because Yaz is still sitting there, keeping watch. It’s admittedly reassuring to know she’s got an eye on things. It’s a weird thing to think- but it reminds him of how he was able to sleep during those weeks on his own because Bumpy was there. Maybe…maybe he’ll be able to drop off.

His mind drifts as he makes an effort to sleep. He thinks about the boat trip that eventually ended in victory as they ran into a Costa Rica coast guard vessel that towed them to shore. He recalls the tense days in the open ocean where all of them refused to sleep and Kenji didn’t take his hands off the wheel once- except apparently to push that Compy overboard. He remembers the whispered arguments over what to do if the food and water ran out before they found land. It all lingers in his mind, and it keeps replaying like a twisted movie.

Thanks to how slow the boat had been forced to go, and how intense the waves had gotten at time, it had been a slow and painful trip back to civilisation. Even with the compass and a map they’d found on the boat, there’d been some instances where they’d gotten turned around and chugged alone for half an hour before anyone noticed what was wrong. Someone had always been around to keep an eye on their multiple patch jobs of the hole, but nobody really knew what to do if it started leaking. It was as terrifying as being on the island was, but everyone was mostly in good spirits thanks to the tangible sense that they were finally going home. Everyone, except Ben.

Ben refuses to admit it but being out on the ocean scared him more than he’d been expecting. He thinks it was because of the lack of anywhere to go if things got sour. Back on Isla Nublar, there was always somewhere to run and something to hide behind. On the boat they were as exposed as one could be. Sure, you could jump into the ocean, but then where could you go? One tiny human in a vast sea? There was no surviving that. He remembers on their first night out there, he’d curled up in a ball under a table in the galley and wished with all his might that he’d never gotten on the boat. He allowed himself this weakness for maybe ten minutes, and then he pushed it all to the side and got up to patrol the deck.

Right now, in the darkness of the room with only Yaz’s weight to remind himself he isn’t alone, Ben allows himself this weakness once more.

He clings to it tightly for the rest of the night, stuck going back and forth on whether this makes him a terrible person. In his tired, probably delirious state, he struggles to formulate an argument for either side that will stick. In the end, he only lets it go because there’s a knock at the door and the lights switch on. Then, he lets it drift to the side and pushes his entire being into survival mode as he flips himself onto his feet and bares his teeth in a hiss at whoever it is who’s just walked in. He curls his fingers into talons and raises his shoulders to make himself look bigger than he actually is. They’re off the island- and maybe Ben will make peace with that and maybe he won’t- but he’d meant what he said to Darius about how this new Ben can go anywhere. He’s ready to defend his family, even at the cost of his own life.

The person standing in the door is Jennifer, the head doctor who asked Darius and Ben all those questions yesterday. Not a huge threat, but Ben doesn’t relax. He waits as the others start to wake up around him, disturbed by the sudden light and noise. Only when they’re all alert as he is, will he lower his guard- but only slightly. He refuses to let anybody get the drop on him.

“Good morning,” she says, in that slightly accented English that Ben can only detect on certain words. “Did we sleep well?”

Sammy holds a hand over her eyes to block the fluorescents out but still manages a smile that is only half a grimace. “Fine, thank you.”

Yaz is back lying down next to Sammy- she must have woken someone else up for watch- and she groans and rolls over. “Five more minutes.”

On the other bed, the trio of Kenji, Brooklyn and Darius have ended up as a tangle of limbs everywhere. Arms and legs stick out in such a variety of ways that Ben can only identify what belongs to who thanks to the clothes they wear. Kenji manages to stick his head up and squint at Jennifer.

“What is it?” he asks. “Are our parents here?”

“Not yet,” Jennifer says. “But it’s time for some tests, if you would.”

Ben shoots a glance at the wad of cotton balls taped to Sammy’s arms, and scowls. He hates needles, and he hates invasive questions, and he basically hates everything about going to the doctors.

“It can’t wait?” Sammy suggests. She’d tried the puppy dog eyes on big time yesterday to ensure they’d been able to stay together, and it had worked a treat then. Ben can’t see it having the same affect now though. He’s still awful at reading people, and he’s bad at sensing emotions that aren’t explicitly told to him, but the way Jennifer’s standing- arms folded and back straight- makes him think she’s ready to combat any argument they might throw her way.

“It can’t,” she says. “Really, it couldn’t have waited at all. We did a big favour for you kids. Time to return it. We need to test you for diseases. Not to mention infection and malnourishment. And all your injuries. The sooner we establish treatment plans, the better.”

“Can we at least stay together again?” Sammy seems to sense Jennifer’s refusal to debate as well, and switches tactics to aim for something she has a higher chance of succeeding at.

Jennifer’s mouth twists, though this time the hidden meaning is entirely lost to Ben. “I suppose, if you must. Will you be staying with the same pairs as yesterday?”

Brooklyn sticks a hand out of the Kenji-Darius-Brooklyn pile and waves it around like she’s in school. “Can I go with Darius today?”

“Ouch,” Kenji tries to clutch at his chest in fake agony but Darius is pinning his arms down. “Rejected.”

“You can go with Ben,” she says. “I wanna hang with Darius.”

She probably wants to continue their semi-fight from last night, Ben thinks. It just comes at the expense of separating him and Darius. Oh well, Ben can manage fine with Kenji. He’ll talk so much that Ben can quietly fly under the radar and keep taking stock of the situation.

“Can we at least get ten minutes to freshen ourselves up?” Sammy continues her crusade as Ben keeps careful eyes on Jennifer. “We’re kinda all still half asleep.”

“Ten minutes,” Jennifer says shortly. She’s drawn a line in the sand (hospital linoleum?) and now the campers can’t cross it. “I’ll be back.”

She steps out and shuts the door, cutting off the faint noises of the hospital behind her. Sammy pulls a face and flops back down next to Yaz.

“I tried, y’all,” she says. “Best get up.”

Ben is already up. He slips off the bed and prowls over to the door to keep an ear out for when Jennifer returns. He has no need to freshen up. They can take him like he is, or leave it.

(He’d really prefer they leave it.)

The others rouse themselves as quick as they can. Brooklyn slips into the ensuite bathroom Ben had noticed yesterday, while everyone else settles for tugging at their clothes and blindly smoothing down their hair. It doesn’t do much to dispel the idea that they’re a bunch of messed up kids, but it would take maybe five days of intense spa treatments to fix that, so they’ll just have to make do. Nobody bothered to shower yesterday so they’re all still pretty filthy.

Ben can hear the telltale sound of footsteps approaching just as Brooklyn emerges, now looking the cleanest of all of them- even if it is just because she’s put her hair up and washed her face. She’s just darting over to stand next to Darius when the door swings open and Jennifer is back. Behind her are five other people that Ben doesn’t recognise. Other doctors he assumes, maybe the ones who saw the others yesterday, but he still won’t relax though. Assumptions can be wrong.

“Hang on,” Brooklyn says before any of them can split up again. “I didn’t say anything yesterday because it was just questions, but can you actually do any of this without our parents giving us permission?”

Ben blinks. He genuinely hadn’t thought of that. Each person brings a different thing to the table, he thinks. It’s the reason they work so well together. It’s the reasons things will be much worse once they have to split up. He might be able to manage- because he managed for all those weeks out in the jungle on his own- but he can’t be sure anyone else can. Darius had proven that yesterday.

“We sent away for permission,” Jennifer says. Her tone oozes with enough frustration that even Ben can tell how she’s feeling. You can’t stop this, she seems to be saying.

“And you got it?” Brooklyn raises an eyebrow.

“We did,” Jennifer says. “I understand you’re probably all afraid but we can’t delay this any longer.”

“Hey, not trying to delay anything,” Brooklyn holds her arms out in apparent appeasem*nt. “Just making sure you guys weren’t leaving yourself open for a lawsuit.”

Ben’s mother was part of the legal team that represented Jurassic World- hence his reluctant involvement with the camp- so he thinks there’s probably a much bigger lawsuit coming up that they’ll all be involved in, but he can understand where Brooklyn is coming from. That, and she was totally trying to delay the tests. Maybe Ben can’t read Jennifer, but he understands Brooklyn enough to know when she’s slipped her media persona on to try and get what she wants. It just hasn’t worked out for her this time.

“Thank you for that…consideration,” Jennifer says. “If you and Darius would follow me and my co-worker, as you’ll be with us. Sammy and Yasmina will be with doctors Diaz and Sharpe. Benjamin and Kenji, you will be with doctors Torres and Turci.

Ben scans the group of doctors instantly, trying to work out who he and Kenji will be with. He didn’t see anyone move at the sound of the name Torres, but when Jennifer had said Turci, a small woman with curly black hair had shifted slightly. Her, perhaps?

(Emotions, he’s garbage with. Body language…well, Ben had to get good at that to survive.)

He really doesn’t enjoy the fact that they’re splitting up- it makes it feel like a purposeful attempt to weaken the group- but Ben knows a hopeless fight when he sees one. Contrary to popular belief, he hadn’t just gone round on the island attacking dinosaurs for the hell of it. He sizes up an opponent and makes a decision on whether to engage or not. At least they’re not doing it alone. Kenji is as much a comforting presence at his side as Darius was, and it would be the same for anyone else. These people are Ben’s family now.

Darius and Brooklyn get led away first, and then Yaz and Sammy follow. That leaves the two doctors waiting for Ben and Kenji to move. Ben was right about who Turci is- the small woman is standing there- and Torres is revealed to be a young man with a boyish face who is either some kind of super genius who flew through a medical degree, or much older than he looks. Ben thinks he could take both of them in a physical fight if it came down to it, so he doesn’t kick up too much of a fuss as they’re guided out of their room and back down the same corridor they’d seen yesterday during the whole ‘ask a bunch of questions’ thing.

Kenji whistles nervously as they walk. Ben remembers what Brooklyn had said yesterday about Kenji nearly fainting when they’d suggested a blood test. Kenji had denied it, but he’s always quick to deny anything that supposedly messes with his cool guy persona. Does Kenji hate doctors and needles and medical junk as much as Ben does? If he does, Ben can’t help but feel relieved. He won’t be alone in his fears.

Back when they’d first gotten to Jurassic World and it was just a normal camp- as normal as a dinosaur camp could be- Ben had felt embarrassed by the fact that he seemed to be the only one actually afraid of things. Germs and heights and all those other quintessential phobia things; Ben had been made to feel stupid for having those fears. That Ben is long dead now- because fear gets you killed- but a little part of this Ben sort of likes the fact that he’s not the only ‘irrational’ one for once. Another part of him is upset that Kenji has to feel like this at all though.

Out of the frying pan fear and into the fire fear, Ben thinks. They’re trading hungry dinosaurs for stubborn doctors. And then they’ll trade stubborn doctors for overbearing parents. Or…

Ben looks at Kenji carefully again.

Will Kenji’s father even come?

“Just through here please,” Torres says, interrupting Ben before he can consider that awful thought. He’s gesturing to a room that seems to be pretty much the same as the one Ben and Darius had been in before, just a little bigger and with a few more supplies. There’s still the chairs and cupboards and the examination bed. If not for the slight differences, Ben would almost think it was the same room.

Well, he would if he wasn’t the kind of person to memorise every path he takes to ensure he never gets lost ever again.

Kenji takes a seat when Turci offers him one, but Ben stays standing. Neither doctor makes a comment on this. Torres starts scribbling away on a clipboard even though nobody’s actually said anything or done any tests, and Turci snaps on gloves and starts rooting through the cupboards for various supplies. Ben eyes each one with growing apprehension. A tight ball of tension starts tangling in his belly.

“I’m allergic to latex,” he says. It’s the truth, and he always wants a way to break the tension. Turci- midway through pulling out a series of syringes that has Kenji turning an interesting shade of white- glances at him.

“That wasn’t mentioned on your chart,” she says. She has a slight accent that’s different from Jennifer’s. Ben can’t place it.

“Jennifer didn’t ask us about allergies,” Ben says, shrugging.

Turci frowns, but she deftly switches gloves and continues to unpack various medical bibs and bobs.

Ben kicks Kenji’s tattered shoe lightly to get his attention. “You okay?” he whispers when Kenji looks at him.

“Sure,” Kenji says, which sounds like a total lie. He has his hands clenched tightly into fists around the fabric of his pants. “Just…don’t really like this sorta stuff.”

“Me too,” Ben admits. It’s a tiny weakness and only one that he’ll tell the other campers. Enough vulnerabilities can pile up and bring you down, after all.

“Huh,” Kenji says. “Always thought you’d love this sorta stuff, what with all your sanitising and worrying about germs.”

“I spent a lot of time in hospitals as a kid,” Ben says. He thinks if he opens up, it might set Kenji at ease. Like how Ben had been comforted knowing he wasn’t the only afraid one; he can give Kenji this comfort as well. “None of it was any fun. It…it sticks with you.”

“It sure does,” says Kenji. “I mean, I wasn’t there heaps. But when I was…” he trails off and sighs.

Turci and Torres are still working to set up all their tests, so they’re not paying any attention, but Kenji still looks conflicted. Ben waits, knowing Kenji will spill eventually. He always did back on the island. If there was a secret you wanted kept, you couldn’t tell it to him.

“Nobody was ever there with me,” Kenji says finally. “I was always alone. Imagine getting a broken arm set or having to get a scary injection, and the only person trying to comfort you is the nurse or doctor who’s gonna do it.”

Ben aches to hug Kenji, which is weird because he’s not really big on hugs anymore. He settles for nudging Kenji’s foot again, harder this time so Kenji hopefully understands what he’s trying to say.

I’m here for you.

Kenji gives him a smile, so Ben thinks he probably got the message.

The moment doesn’t last though, because that’s when Turci (Ben kinda wishes he knew the doctors’ first names because it feels like they’re on unequal footing) seemingly finishes assembling all the equipment and Torres puts down his pen. The two give Ben and Kenji assessing looks that has Ben’s skin crawling. He can’t stop his eyes from darting over the pile of things Turci has set out in preparation for these tests. The knot in his stomach tightens even further and it starts to hurt. The tips of his fingers tingle. His vision blurs for a second, and he blinks to clear it.

“Right,” Turci says. “We’ll try to be quick about this, okay? Let us know if anything gets too uncomfortable and we can take a short break.”

Ben nods, but he’s not really hearing her words. It’s especially hard to keep focus when Torres picks up on of the syringes and takes a step towards him.

“We’re gonna do a blood test first, alright?” he says. It’s funny he’s asking for permission because Ben’s under the impression that actually, they’re not allowed to have a say in this. It’s so funny that Ben’s stomach hurts from how much he’s holding back his laughter…not.

“Um…” Kenji says. His dark eyes find Ben’s before darting back to Torres. “Okay?”

“This won’t hurt much at all,” Torres says. He takes a step forward.

It’s only just now that Ben’s slowly panicking mind makes a connection between Torres, and the name Toro. Honestly, there’s nothing there to connect except for the similar sounding names, and yet his brain latches onto it like it’s some final solution in a tricky puzzle they’ve been working on. His vision starts to blur again as this realisation becomes concrete, and baby-face Torres starts to flicker into the looming, burnt Carnotaurus that had tormented them so much. Back and forth the two go, switching in and out every time Ben so much as blinks. Torres/Toro gets even closer with the needle, and Ben swears he can smell the scent of burning flesh. It sends a wave of bile rushing up his throat and he clamps his lips together to stop it from getting out. Torres/Toro stops right in front of him, and is that smoke Ben can see rising off his body?

Enough, Ben thinks to himself. If this is scaring him so much- and he hates that it is because he’s supposed to not be afraid anymore- then he simply doesn’t have to stick around for it.

He takes a step out of his body and lets the world fall away.

Chapter 4: So I swallow my grief and face life's final test

Chapter Text

I really don’t like needles, Kenji thinks as Turci and Torres (he’s really digging the alliteration they’ve got going on- he hopes their first names start with the same letter as well) arm themselves with needles and each pick a camper to attack- sorry, attend to. The last time he had a blood test was maybe five years ago though, so Kenji’s hoping maybe somewhere along the line his body changed his mind about them, and it’s actually going to turn out he’s okay. A naïve hope, sure, but Kenji’s seen first-hand what even a little hope can do, so he’s holding out for a miracle.

Ben has gone awfully still at Kenji’s side as Turci rolls up his sleeve and starts prodding at his arm in search of a vein. Kenji hadn’t expected her to work so fast, and his heartrate abruptly jackrabbits into action as if it’s only just realised that Kenji’s afraid. It doesn’t help that Ben suddenly looks like he’s a million miles away. Kenji had been almost happy to hear that he wasn’t the only afraid one in the room- ever since Ben returned to them after his near death by Pteranodons, he rarely seems to feel the same fear everyone else does. It had been a change of pace, and Kenji hadn’t felt as alone. Seems like it was all for nothing though, because Ben’s eyes appear to be glazed over and he doesn’t even move when Torres conducts his own search for an acceptable vein.

Kenji flinches as Turci lightly swabs at the inner skin of his forearm with a wipe, and prepares to inset the needle. He tenses up unwillingly (guess the hope that he’d not be afraid anymore had just been a shot in the dark) and then looks away abruptly as she deftly pierces his skin. Kenji almost bites through his lip at the sting. Actually, he can taste blood in his mouth so there’s no ‘almost’ about it. He doesn’t think he went the whole way through at least. Most likely he just broke some skin.

“All done,” Turci says. Kenji turns back to her in surprise. She’s taped a cotton ball down over the injection site, and he can’t even see where the vial of blood has gone. Quick in the set up and even quicker in the execution, Kenji supposes.

He glances back at Ben and sees that Torres is done too. Ben is gazing ahead blankly as if he can’t even see the doctor carefully pressing the cotton to his arm. It reminds Kenji of a time on the island where some Pteranodons had been circling the camp one morning- maybe a few months after they’d gotten Ben back. Kenji had expected Ben to lose his sh*t at them- the way he did with Compys and such- but Ben had crawled under a bunk and gone limp. His eyes had clouded over and he hadn’t even looked like he was breathing. It had freaked Kenji out so much he’d volunteered to go get water from the creek instead of staying there and watch Ben do his best impersonation of a dead person.

There’s nowhere for Kenji to run now.

“Ben,” he hisses as Torres and Turci pack up the blood test stuff and get ready for whatever’s next. “You good, bro?”

Ben doesn’t move. His chest rises and falls, but it’s slow and hard to make out. Kenji hesitates, and then leans over and waves his non-injected arm in front of Ben’s eyes. Ben doesn’t even blink.

“Oooooookay,” Kenji sits back uncertainly. “You’re super out of it. That’s cool.”

Not cool. Not cool at all. Kenji doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do about this. He’s barely keeping himself together, and Ben said he’d be there for Kenji- well he hadn’t said it but he’d kicked Kenji’s foot which Kenji had thought was his way of saying he’d be there- and now Ben’s just checked out. No lights on, nobody’s home. Doors locked and key missing from under the doormat- passwords changed because Kenji’s failed something yet again.

It's up to Kenji to be the responsible one now, apparently. Hah. Top ten things that have never happened ever. Kenji has never wanted to be the responsible one, nor has anyone ever expected it of him. Not his teachers, or Dave and Roxy, and especially not his dad. On the island, the others tried to nudge him into it, but he made a fuss and did a bad job of whatever it was on purpose, and then he slunk away to internally berate himself for making their lives more difficult in an already suck situation.

Sometimes, Kenji really hates himself. Honestly, lately, he hates himself all the time.

He can do something here though, right? He can make up for all his goofing off. Something’s seriously up with Ben, but Kenji still has a hold off himself and that means…that means what? What is he supposed to do? They just have to sit here and let all these tests happen to them. There’s no dinosaur to fight, and there’s no boat to steer. There’s no tree to get Ben to relax against, or no coin he can throw at a raptor to elevate the brevity of the situation. Kenji’s ability to goof off even in the most difficult of moments apparently can’t work in a hospital- so whatever Kenji has to offer, it won’t be right now.

Turci approaches with some kind of stick swab, and Kenji slumps listlessly in his chair. His eyes flicker between Turci and Ben. “What’s this for?” he asks. Maybe he can just talk his way through this- for his sake and hopefully for Ben’s as well.

(If only he’d actually stuck around last time Ben got like this. Then maybe he’d know what to do about it.)

“Testing for some viruses,” Turci says. “It goes up your nose.”

“My nose? Ew!”

Turci rolls her eyes. “It’s not like you’ll have to touch it or anything,” she holds out a small clear tube in her other hand. “It’ll go in here and then be sent off to the lab.”

Even though it’s not a needle, Kenji’s body tenses up in anticipation as Turci stops right in front of him. A quick glance over at Ben shows that Torres is standing right next to him as well. These two doctors are frighteningly in sync. It almost reminds Kenji of…of Ben and Bumpy.

“Try not to sneeze,” Turci says as a warning, and then she tips Kenji’s head back with a gloved hand and shoves the swap up his nose with the other. It is one of the single most uncomfortable things ever and how the hell can she tell him not to sneeze because all he wants to do is sneeze and-

“Done,” Turci removes the swap and drops it into the clear tube which she’s pulled out of her pocket. She seals it and slaps some kind of label on it. “Not too bad, right?”

Kenji answers with three rapid sneezes in a row. She rolls her eyes again and hands him a tissue. Kenji wants to roll his eyes on return, but with their number one fighter currently AWOL from his body, Kenji doesn’t think he wants to start any kind of drama- even if it is just an annoyed doctor. He takes the tissue and wipes his nose. Still standing up, Ben doesn’t seem to have reacted at all to the swab. Torres is giving him a weird look as he packages up his own tube, like maybe he’s just realised his patient isn’t all that there.

“What else do we have to do?” Kenji asks. He still feels utterly useless, but maybe if he can get some information then he can make some kind of plan? Maybe?

“Basic tests,” Turci says. She’s holding a blood pressure cuff now, and Torres has one of his own.

“Yeah, but what?” Kenji probes. “How many?”

“It’ll depend on some of the results,” Turci says. She clamps the cuff around Kenji’s arm- the opposite one from where she took his blood- and starts to squeeze the pump. Kenji winces as the pressure increases to the point where it hurts, only for it to deflate just as he starts to think it might do some serious damage.

“Is your friend okay?” Torres asks. Kenji’s head snaps around and he sees that Ben is still standing there- eyes flat but body tense.

“I…sure,” Kenji lies. He doesn’t want to draw unnecessary attention to Ben. “Um…he just does this sometimes.”

Torres and Turci exchange a look. Torres raises an eyebrow, and Turci nods. Whatever silent agreement they’ve come to, it involves Torres producing his clipboard again and scribbling away on it. Kenji sighs internally. Looks like he’s failed to protect Ben- just like he’d failed time and time again to protect anyone on the island.

“Focus on me,” Turci says. “Torres will look after your friend.”

She’s just trying to be reassuring, Kenji knows that, but he can’t trust that this stranger will do that. Every adult they’ve run into has let them down, or died. For the others- it’s an island exclusive. For Kenji- it’s his whole life. Everyone he knows either dies or does wrong by him. He’d been stupid to think Jurassic World would be any different, and he’s not going to make that mistake now. Turci can jab him with needles and wrap him up in blood pressure cuffs, but he’s not going to stop checking in on Ben. Kenji had shared his fears about being alone, and Ben had done his best to comfort him. Now something is wrong with Ben and so Kenji wants to do what he can to do the same for Ben.

So when Turci makes Kenji stand up on a scale, he watches carefully as Torres guides Ben to do the same. He carefully notes how Torres visibly recoils from the number, and fails to notice Turci to do the same for his. He moves obligingly as Turci snaps photos of his various scars, paying more attention to Torres and his camera. Ben has a lot more scars than Kenji does, and some of them apparently cause Torres a great deal of concern because he starts taking notes at a rapid-fire pace. Kenji watches all this, and misses the fact that Turci is writing just as much about his injuries. He bites his tongue and keeps quiet as Turci gently scrapes skin off some of his more recent cuts into a vial, because it’s much more important to watch over Ben as Torres uses a similar instrument to copy Turci’s movement. He doesn’t protest as Turci starts to clean him up with an antiseptic that stings. After all, Torres is cleaning Ben’s wounds as well, so Kenji just has to keep watching so Ben knows that Kenji is looking out for him- Kenji has his back- Kenji won’t leave him again.

“Kenji,” Turci finally speaks to him again, and her tone is serious enough that Kenji reluctantly turns to look at her. He absently notes the new bandages he has. “We’re almost finished. I just have to ask you a few quick questions.”

“We did all the questions yesterday,” Kenji says. Between him and Brooklyn, they’d recounted everything they’d eaten and drunken, the different ways they’d gotten hurt, and any potential illnesses they might have had. A different doctor (some man called Anthony who he thinks went with Yaz and Sammy today) had given them the all clear to wait until the next day to do more tests, and then sent them back to their room where they’d promptly stumbled into Darius having a panic attack.

“I want to ask about this,” Turci points at a white twist of a scar that’s always reminded Kenji a little of a rope. It runs horizontally across the back of his right hand, about halfway down from where his fingers start and is roughly the size of his pinkie. “How’d you get it?”

“Oh,” Kenji says. “No, that’s nothing. I didn’t get that on the island.”

“I know,” Turci says.

Kenji frowns. He runs the pads of his left fingers across the scar. “Then why do you wanna know about it?”

“I’d just like to know where it came from,” she says. Her casualness strikes at the cord of a memory inside Kenji- of doctors just like her telling him his mum’s going to be fine. She’s lying to him somehow, he thinks. She’s pretending everything’s fine but actually she’s worried. She so

“Why?” he asks- repeats. “I told you. It’s old.”

“Yes, Kenji,” Turci says. “Very old. Old enough to be worrying.”

“You’re not making any sense.” Kenji’s voice sounds weird in his ears. “We’re talking about stuff we got on the island.”

“I’m a doctor,” says Turci. “I’m allowed to look at other things as well.”

“But I don’t have to say anything, right?” Kenji barely gets the words out. He wishes Brooklyn and her knowledge of the law was here. “Because-uh-you only got permission to talk about island stuff.”

“We got permission to treat anything,” Turci corrects him. “Broadly speaking, I can ask you to tell me about anything.”

Kenji bites down on his lip again. He can still taste the blood from when he did it the first time. His eyes dart over to Ben, but he’s just staring resolutely ahead while Torres prods gloved hands over his ribcage. Kenji looks back to Turci and tries to mimic Ben’s whole vibe.

“And I can say no,” he insists. He knows why he’s making such a fuss about this, and he’s afraid she knows why as well, but he’s kept this secret for so long. At times he’s even almost convinced himself the real story was fake, and he’d just imagined it. He isn’t about to start sharing it now. Not when they’re so close to being sent home and having everything go back to the way it was.

“You’re a minor, Kenji,” Turci says. “There is a signed agreement from your dad allowing me to look after you. That means you have to-”

“Did you even hear him?”

A snarling voice rips through the room and startles Kenji so much he flinches backwards in his chair and nearly tips it into the wall. The feral growl reminds him of a dinosaur and has his heart rocketing into an even faster pace than the one it had started up when he’d seen the needles. He starts to raise his hands over his head (hah, like that’ll protect him) when clarity sinks in and reminds him there are no dinosaurs in Costa Rica. The thing responsible for the noise is-

There’s a blur of movement and suddenly Turci is stumbling a few feet back. Ben is standing in front of Kenji, leaning forward with his arms spread wide as he keeps himself between Kenji and Turci. Kenji can’t see his face, but he knows Ben’s protective look like the back of his scarred hand. His eyes will be narrowed, teeth bared and eyebrows furrowed so deeply his forehead turns into a cavern.

There’s a low growl building in the back of Ben’s throat that sounds like Bumpy. “Did you hear him?” Ben repeats himself, spitting each word out like a bullet. “He said no.”

Woah, Kenji thinks. Ben’s doing this for him. Ben broke out of his blank state for him. Ben just pushed a doctor for him.

“Okay,” Turci says slowly. She holds her hands up, like Ben’s pulling a gun on her. “Alright. He said no. I’m sorry.”

“He said no,” Ben repeats. “He said no!”

“I won’t ask again,” Turci says. “I’m sorry.”

“Did you hear him?” it’s like Ben’s stuck in a loop. Kenji had been happy at first to see Ben protecting him, but now he’s starting to get worried. This isn’t normal.

(None of this is normal. Not the hospital and not the island and certainly not Kenji’s life before all of that even started.)

“I heard him,” Turci says. She’s keeping her eyes on Ben but one of her hands moves slightly towards where Torres is still standing, backed up against the wall where Ben had left him. Is she gesturing for something?

“He said no.”

“He did,” Turci says softly. Her voice is gentle and gives nothing away. If it was Kenji being mollified, he might have let it happen. His dad has always said he doesn’t have backbone to speak of.

Ben falters on his next words (which were probably going to be ‘did you hear him’ or ‘he said no’) and turns his face to look at Kenji. His eyes are no longer blank- instead they are wide and full of pain. Kenji hates himself even more then he usually does. He’s done this to Ben.

No, a voice says in his head. You didn’t do this- the doctors did. You said no and they didn’t listen.

“Ben,” Kenji says. He forces himself to sound normal. He doesn’t need to treat Ben like a wild animal, but nor does he need to get angry about this. Ben is stuck in some kind of loop- his brain demanding that he keep Kenji safe. It’s a noble thing to do, and he’s done it now, so Kenji has to let him know it’s okay. “I’m okay. She’s going to listen to me, right?”

He aims the last bit at Turci, who nods. She has excellent control over her face- Kenji has no idea what she’s thinking. Is she angry at Ben for interfering? Ashamed that she provoked this sort of reaction? Kenji has relied on his ability to read people to get him out of a number of sh*tty situations, and he’s uncomfortable with the fact that he can’t do it now.

“See?” Kenji says. Ben’s eyes narrow. “No more talking about it.”

He manages a smile, even though his stomach is a churning mess of conflicting emotions. His mind rallies against him- shouting different words that he tries his best to ignore. If he can’t calm Ben down now, then what good is he? He bets Darius would be able to, or maybe even Yaz. Kenji wants to be useful. He wants his friends to never have a reason to throw him away. It shouldn’t be easy to reject someone, but Kenji’s father has proven that it actually is. Now, Kenji lives in fear of it.

Ben draws himself properly up onto both feet, falling out of his attacking stance. His shoulders relax and his face smooths out. He takes a few steps back until he’s next to Kenji, and then he slumps against the wall. Turci relaxes as well now that Ben is seemingly no longer about to lunge at her throat.

“We’re done,” she says. Whether it’s because they actually are or because she doesn’t want to upset Ben and Kenji any further, Kenji can’t say. “We’ll take you back to your room. Someone will come by to make sure you shower, and then hook you up to an IV.”

“Hook us up to an IV?” Kenji wrinkles his nose.

“Shower?” Ben pulls a face. It’s such a normal thing for him to do that Kenji’s heart finally settles back down.

“You’re both extremely malnourished and suffering some signs of dehydration,” Torres says. Kenji hadn’t noticed it at first, but his deep voice really doesn’t match his baby face. “It’s best to get some fluids into you before we proceed with some re-feeding plans.”

Kenji decides he doesn’t want to fight this. They’ve already both proven that obeying the signed agreements from their parents for treatment is more important than actually listening to the people being treated. That, and if he starts to make a fuss, Ben might lose his sh*t again.

“I’ll walk you back,” says Torres.

“I remember how to get there,” Ben says icily.

“If that’s okay with you,” Kenji adds. He can be peacekeeper, even if Turci’s question had seriously freaked him out.

Torres looks at Turci, and she nods. Guess that’s settled then. Kenji lets Ben walk out first, pausing at the door to shoot an apologetic look at the doctors that is more of an attempt to cover for Ben than it is an actual apology.

“I’m sorry about that,” he lies. Or, is it a lie? He’s sorry Ben scared them, but he’s also not sorry that Ben stopped their line of questioning. “He’s not dangerous, I promise.”

Torres folds his arms. “He pushed Doctor Turci.”

“It’s alright, Torres.” Turci says. “I scared him,” she looks Kenji right in the eyes. “I scared them both.”

“Hey,” Kenji says, forcing a laugh. His heart threatens to climb up his throat. “No harm done. I’m fine.”

“I mean this in no offense, Kenji,” Turci says. “But I think you might have a rather warped view of what’s fine and what isn’t.”

Kenji flinches away from her. Suddenly, the back of his right hand feels like it’s on fire- like something is cutting into it all over again. Her dark eyes keep him pinned to the ground, and he can’t seem to turn his head to see if Ben is still hovering outside or if he’s already started walking back to their room, which- by the way- Kenji does not remember how to get to.

“That scar,” Turci says. Her voice leaves no room for arguments, and she seems to know that Ben won’t be making a reappearance. “How did you get it?”

Kenji forces his breathing to settle. He pictures leaning his back against the perfect resting tree and letting his hands rest in soft grass. He goes to a happy place where his five friends are with him, keeping him safe.

“If you’re making this much of a fuss about it, doc,” he says, voice as falsely casual as hers had been when she’d started this whole mess. “Then I guess you must already know.”

Then he unsticks his feet from the floor and turns on his heels. The corridors looms in front of him- a seemingly ever-expanding path he’ll have to walk. He thinks he can see Ben halfway down it, but that might just be his blurry vision letting him down. Faintly, he hears Turci say something.

“…child protective services…”

She may as well have shot him, it probably would have hurt less. Kenji falters, and then misses a step and nearly falls. She can’t. She can’t.

He finds his voice again but this time it’s just a croak that wouldn’t fool anyone. “Ben…” he croaks out. He doesn’t think he can walk right now. “Ben!”

Ben is there in a flash, thankfully proving that Kenji’s vision isn’t actually failing him. He wraps spindly and yet surprisingly strong arms around Kenji that provides enough of a foundation for Kenji to start taking a few tentative steps.

“What did she say?” Ben asks. His voice is a mix of anger and concern. Kenji’s panicking brain remembers the tone as being the exact same as when Ben had said he was always a jerk- right back on the very first day that started this whole sh*tshow. What had Ben been concerned about back then? Kenji had been too busy panicking to hear anything but the anger. A jerk, Ben had said. And Kenji…

Kenji had to agree with him.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says.

“Kenji, you can barely walk,” Ben says. All signs of his earlier freakout are gone. Or maybe they’ve just been pushed beneath the surface to remerge another time. “That’s not something that doesn’t matter.”

How does Kenji tell Ben that he doesn’t matter? How can he begin to unpack the false bravado that has him singing of his own importance, because deep down Kenji knows it’s all a lie. I’m rich, he always tells the others. He can’t say much else. The things he has going for him- they’re all just labels his father passed down to him. Everything else is just the Kenji that nobody will like.

No, he rallies uselessly against his thoughts. They like me. My friends like me!

“Kenji?” Ben asks uncertainly. They’re still stumbling slowly back to their room, but Kenji has slowed down even more, if that’s possible.

“I’m okay,” Kenji says.

Ben snorts. “Sure,” he says flatly. “We’re all okay.”

Kenji doesn’t know what to say to that, so he stays quiet. Ben remains silent as well as he continues to half carry, half drag Kenji back to their room. They don’t come across anyone else, which Kenji supposes is the benefit of being in a private hospital. Less people around to gawk. He wonders who’s paying for it all. These are questions he should have asked earlier, but honestly, how could any of that stuff matter as much as them being together did? He’s just glad to be here, safe and alive and not a single dinosaur (or parent) in sight. He’ll start acting his age when there’s somebody around to expect it of him.

See, he tells himself. The others don’t expect someone you’re not.

Kenji can’t make sense of that though, because he doesn’t actually know who he is.

“We’re here,” Ben says abruptly. He’s stopped in front of a door that is slowly becoming familiar to Kenji. With his one free hand, Ben reaches out awkwardly and opens it. Kenji tenses in preparation, since it’s unlikely they’ll be the first ones back.

Sure enough, Darius and Brooklyn are wearing what looks like baggy white scrubs and sitting up in separate beds, contained to them by the IV lines and blood oxygen machine thingies that are sticking out of their bodies. Kenji takes in the re-organised room with everything evenly apart and separated by the bedside tables, and shudders. Last night he’d managed to sleep okay because he’d been wrapped around Darius and Brooklyn. Looks like that was a one time offer.

“Guys,” Darius says. He leans forward slightly. He’s got a few new bandages wrapped around various parts of his body to with his new clothes, and there’s some colour back in his cheeks that Kenji hadn’t even realised was missing until he sees it again. “You okay?”

“Sure,” Ben says, like he had done just moments before. “We’re all okay.”

Oh no. Is he repeating himself again?

“Lie,” Brooklyn snorts. She looks much cleaner than she had that morning, even after freshening up in the bathroom and apparently finding new stuff to wear. In fact, so does Darius. They must have had showers, like Kenji and Ben are supposed to have soon. “What happened?”

“You first,” Ben insists. Not repeating then- just making a callback. He guides Kenji over to one of the free beds and deposits him there. Kenji expects Ben to go find somewhere else to sit, but Ben perches at the end of Kenji’s feet and curls his knees up to his chin. “What did they do to you?”

“What didn’t they do,” Brooklyn groans. “Blood tests and nose swaps and skin samples, oh my.”

“They said we were super malnourished and needed these,” Darius gives his arm with the IV needle a small shake. “But we had showers first. And they cleaned a bunch of our more recent cuts.”

“And they said we had to see a hospital psych if there was time,” Brooklyn adds.

Kenji freezes, eyes narrowed in on the stupid scar on the back of his hand that he wishes could have just faded away like many of his others had. “Huh,” he says. He thinks if he tries hard enough he can mimic that faux casualness again. “They didn’t say anything about that to us.”

Brooklyn laughs. “Probably because you’re both so well adjusted.”

She’s being sarcastic- which means she thinks Kenji’s kinda f*cked up- but it still makes him laugh as well, because he knows it’s the same for her. It’s the same for all of them, which is as funny as it is depressing. It’s also entirely understandable. They’re allowed to be messed up after fighting for their lives and being constantly betrayed for a year.

But Kenji hadn’t come to the island as a well-adjusted teenager. He’s adding trauma to trauma and ending up with a f*cked up answer to the whole equation. Most likely Turci and Torres had noticed how…how not okay in the head Ben and Kenji are, and had decided not to make a big deal out of it after Ben and Kenji kinda melted down right in front of them.

“How about you guys?” Darius asks. He’s unaware of Kenji’s dramatic internal monologue, or maybe he’s being nice and letting Kenji handle it on his own. Kenji wouldn’t know how to handle it if they asked him to start talking about his feelings which is…exactly what they did to Darius yesterday. Kenji’s just lucky that Darius doesn’t believe in karmic retribution.

“Same as you,” Kenji says. “We’re gonna have to have showers and get IVs as well.”

“Call that starving solidarity,” Brooklyn says. Her dry wit always calms Kenji down when he’s feeling particularly wound up. He wishes she’d been with him when Turci had pinned him down over the scar. But then that feels like he’s being ungrateful for what Ben had done to try and protect him.

“Did they say anything about your parents coming?” Darius asks.

Kenji stiffens, and glances at Ben. “Um…no.”

They’d said something about his dad, but it hadn’t been good.

“Yeah,” Ben says, backing Kenji up even if it is only by accident. “They just kept reminding us our parents had given them the okay to treat us.”

And boy oh boy had that ended up causing some chaos.

“Did they say something to you guys?” Kenji checks.

Like is my dad on the other side of that door?

“They just said they should be here soon,” Brooklyn shrugs. “But I guess since everyone’s coming from everywhere, it’ll take different times.”

If Kenji’s father wanted to, he could hop on his private jet and be out here in no time at all. The fact that he isn’t doesn’t bode well for Kenji. He hates how his dad can either not be in the picture, or be in the picture and it’ll still cause trouble for Kenji. That doesn’t feel fair. There should be a reprieve at some stage.

“Anyway,” Darius says abruptly. He’s very carefully not looking at Kenji. “When are you guys going for showers? You stink.”

Kenji latches onto the change of subject in a way only he can- unnecessarily dramatically. “You wound me, Darius,” he says. “After everything we’ve been through, and now you-”

“You mean we can’t shower here?” Ben cuts him off. He doesn’t sound that unhappy about it.

“Have you not been in our bathroom yet?” Brooklyn makes a big show of holding her nose. “No shower in there. You gotta go to this special room.”

“I think we’re waiting until someone shows up,” Kenji says. “They said something about that.”

He can’t really remember- too stuck in his panic. Though Ben had made a funny face, so there’s that.

“Hey, Kenji,” Ben whispers. Brooklyn and Darius are still chatting on about the shower room, but Kenji figures he’ll just take it in when he sees it. “Can I…can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Kenji says, taken aback to be asked for permission. New Ben- Ben who’d survived on his own in the jungle- doesn’t tend to have too many hesitations about ploughing into conversations.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to answer,” Ben continues. He prods at Kenji’s ankle with a finger.

“You’re kinda weirding me out,” Kenji says in return. “Since when do you-”

“That scar,” Ben says in a rush. “On your hand. Did you father give you it?”

And Kenji…

Kenji doesn’t know what to do.

“Oh…” he says. He can feel the word in his throat but he can’t hear it in his ears. The world has gone numb. His vision tunnels and all he can see is the scar- pale and twisted like a rope. Or like a…

“Sorry,” Ben says immediately.

“No,” Kenji says. “It’s-um-it’s alright. I mean…I…no. No, he-uh-no. I did it. Clumsy Kenji, you know. I fell…onto…a sharp edge. Cut it a bit. Funny, right?”

“Okay,” Ben says. He sounds sad, and he sounds like he knows Kenji is lying. “Okay, Kenji. That’s pretty funny.”

Kenji used to think he was a good liar, but now he knows better. He’s a garbage liar. It’s just that nobody actually cares about the truths he’s hiding, so they just let it go.

(Ben cares. Ben cares so much. He can just see that Kenji is freaking out, and he doesn’t want to make it worse.)

“Can’t wait to have a shower,” Kenji says. “Haven’t had a proper one in ages.”

“Yeah,” Ben says. “Sure. A shower. Sounds good.”

Kenji shoves on of his hands under a pillow- a totally random one that he definitely didn’t choose on purpose- and starts thinking about how nice it will be to have a hot shower. Ben keeps watching him.

He knows, his brain interrupts. It won’t let him rest. It won’t let him ever be casual, cook Kenji ever again. Maybe he lost the chance to be that Kenji the second the camp was destroyed. Or maybe when his dad first raised a hand against him. Ben knows. He knows, he knows, he knows.

He knows.

Chapter 5: I'm this far from drowning, this far from the sea

Chapter Text

Deep down, Yasmina knew that her ankle was going to end her career the second time she hurt it- stubbornly trying to engage Kenji into doing work. She’d felt the crack- so much different than the initial pop- and her heart had sunken in her chest even before her brain could fully start to comprehend it.

It’s one thing to think it though, and another to have it confirmed.

She feels like the floor has fallen out from underneath her and she’s in free fall- toppling down as the pulley system collapses and the Mosasaurus lunges up with hungry jaws snapping at her feet. The thrill as she flew has lasted barely a second before she was hitting the ground, and the pain was erupting. She feels that pain now- a phantom gnawing that works its way up her ankle as if it was only yesterday that she’d taken that fall. It’s the constant dull ache she always has tripling itself as she almost succumbs to the memories.

“So,” the doctor- Anthony- says, all casual as if he isn’t pulling Yaz’s world down around her. Everything had been going as fine as a full series of invasive tests and questions in a hospital can go, but now there’s this to face. She almost doesn’t want to listen. “Once you’re back home, you’ll need surgery so it can be re-broken it and then set properly this time, or you might risk losing all use of it in the future. You’re lucky we can fix it. But it’ll never be what it once was.”

“Okay,” Yaz says shortly. She doesn’t feel lucky. She’s trying to end the conversation, because she doesn’t need this man to keep repeating what she already knows in various ways like somehow it’ll make her…accept it more?

This is a career ending injury. It’s a self-inflicted career injury. Kenji told her to rest, and she refused. She pushed herself harder when she should have been resting and did away with any hope she had at a full recovery. She’s ruined her entire life- stopped herself from doing the only thing she ever wanted to do. No longer will she run with the wind in her hair and with the knowledge that anybody trying to chase her is a long way behind. That’s all gone. Everyone’s going to be able to catch her now.

She doesn’t need some doctor to remind her of that.

“Oh, Yaz,” Sammy says. She sounds as heartbroken as Yaz feels. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Yaz says firmly. Maybe if she says it enough, it’ll become true. “It’s what I expected.”

“This is all my fault,” Sammy says, which, what?

Yaz grabs for her girlfriend’s hand and feels a little thrill run through her as Sammy grabs back easily. “What are you talking about?” she asks. “There’s no way this is your fault.”

“You wouldn’t have had to push yourself so hard if I hadn’t gotten stuck by those Scorpo barbs,” Sammy says mournfully.

“Hey,” Yaz says. “My ankle was long f*cked before I did that.”

“But I made it worse!”

Yaz grits her teeth. She loves Sammy- not that she’s said love yet because it still feels early- and how kind she is, but Yaz isn’t about to let her take the fall for this one. There’s only one person to blame and it’s Yaz herself, for not knowing her limits.

(Or it’s the dinosaurs’ fault, and the people who couldn’t keep six kids safe on an island that should have had every safety measure in the world.)

“If it’s your fault my ankle’s busted, then it’s my fault you got hit with the spikes,” Yaz says. She feels this guilt constantly, and it’s especially prominent at the moment as Sammy has just been told her blood test results are taking a while because of complications. “I should have protected you.”

She’s well aware that Anthony and the other doctor (Cassie?) are watching this back and forth, but Yaz has made so many sacrifices to keep herself and her friends- her family- alive and she won’t allow Sammy’s kind heart to be another one. Yaz is an athlete, she knows where lines are and when to draw them. She’s drawing one right now and she won’t let Sammy cross it. The state of her ankle is her own fault, and Sammy will not be taking the fall for it. The only way Yaz will even consider letting that happen is if she’s allowed to fall too.

“Ain’t no way you were gonna be able to stop that thing from getting me,” Sammy says. “I’m fine, Yaz. The blood test will prove it.”

“And there’s no way I’m letting you take the blame for this,” says Yaz. She almost pokes her tongue out. “So…so there.”

Sammy giggles despite herself, and it makes Yaz’s heart soar. She’s so lucky to have found this kind of love amongst all the death and despair that Jurassic World boasted. She’s never been one for sentimentality but it’s funny what constantly almost dying while running from the danger with the prettiest girl you’ve ever seen will do to you. She doesn’t want to say she’s changed for the better, because that feels kind of icky to who she’s always been, but she certainly likes the person she’s becoming. She just wishes it wasn’t at the expense of her future.

Wow…that’s a thought.

What does Yaz do with her life now? If running is out of the picture, then what is there for her? She’s always neglected her studies in favour of squeezing in more training so it’s not like she’s academically gifted. All of her potential colleges banked on her getting an athletics scholarship and being supported by corporate sponsors. She lost both of those on the island. Sure, she’s young- there’s time. But it feels like a whole lot less of time when you thought you already had everything figured out.

What’s Sammy doing?

That’s another thought Yaz has to consider now. At first, it felt like all she did on the island was worry about what would happen to them when they split up. She tried to avoid getting attached for fear that it would only end up hurting her. Once their time on Isla Nublar became near indefinite, Yaz started to relax somewhat. She formed those connections and she confessed to Sammy and she let these people become more than friends- she let them become family. Somewhere along the line, she forgot that the island wasn’t forever. Now she’ll have to pay that price.

Sammy will go home, right? To her ranch in Texas- however it looks now. Yaz lives nowhere near there, and she can’t see her mum letting them pick up everything and move out there. Her mum hates the heat, and wide-open spaces, and change. Yaz loves her- and she misses her like crazy- but her mum is also the source of all Yaz’s stubbornness. It’s a Fadoula family trait- one Yaz used to treat as a source of pride. Lately, she just sees the damage it leaves in its path.

“Yaz?”

Maybe Yaz’s mum will let her go visit Sammy. That might make the ache that’s already in her chest feel a little less painful. Every minutes brings them closer to the end, and Yaz is afraid to see what happens next. Will Sammy decide there’s no point trying long distance? Will Yaz’s walls grow stronger the longer they’re apart? What if Yaz’s mum doesn’t approve of them? Or Sammy’s parents? Sure, forbidden love can feel pretty romantic but it’s also kind of sh*t when you’re the only ones who want the relationship to work.

“Yaz, sweetie.”

What if running from dinosaurs was the only thing keeping them together? After all, even with her ankle doing its best to keep her down, Yaz was always able to put on an extra burst of speed because she knew Sammy was either right beside her, or waiting back at the camp for her to return. And maybe their close proximity is a factor as well. For all Yaz knows, Sammy will go back to Texas and find a cute girl who’s nice all the time and never gets stressed out about public displays of affection.

In other words, Sammy will find someone who’s better than Yaz, and she’ll realise that all Yaz has ever done is hold Sammy back.

“Yaz, we’re gonna head back now.”

Struggling with intimacy is another Fadoula trademark, Yaz thinks. She and her mum aren’t big huggers, and anytime her dad is around it’s the same. The three of them form a completely amicable relationship that doesn’t go much deeper than Yaz’s results in races, and if she needs a new coach. Which…come to think of it…that’s another frightening realisation to have- she’s going three for three apparently. Yaz gets along with her parents fine, but it’s usually through the lens of how well she’s doing at track. Her ankle is f*cked now, so that’s all over. Which means most likely-

“Let’s go, Yaz!”

“Huh?” Yaz blinks herself back into the present and sees Sammy is standing up, holding out a hand. The ease at which she initiates any kind of touching makes Yaz hate the fact that she finds it hard.

“You sleepin’ over there?” Sammy says jokingly. “I called your name like five times.”

“Right, sorry,” Yaz stands, forgoing Sammy’s offered hand to test her balance on her own. She flexes her foot, testing the level of movement she has now that they’ve wrapped it again. It looks like a normal ankle to her, but below the surface lies the damage. When she broke it, the bones fused back together in the wrong way. Every step she takes now ruins it even further.

f*ck, they’re going to re-break her ankle.

Yaz almost wishes she had the ability to respond normally to news like that. Ordinary people would have more of a reaction than just saying okay. Does Sammy think Yaz is emotionally stunted?

“Would you like to head straight to the showers?” Sammy asks. She slips her hand into Yaz’s and gives it a squeeze. “I don’t know about you but I’m feeling all kinds of gross.”

“I could go a shower,” Yaz says. It feels good to have a goal to focus her mind on- like how the finish line never failed to motivate her. She turns back to the doctors. “Do you have some plastic I can wrap my bandage in?”

Anthony hands a bunch over. “We can wrap it for you.”

“I’m okay,” says Yaz. “I’ve done this plenty of times.”

Back when she’d done her ACL, in fact. That had been an injury Yaz was sure would end her budding career, but she’d come back faster and stronger. She should cling to that hope now- the past history that supports a full recovery- but she knows it’s useless. Recovering from an ACL is one thing. Moving on from a year of damaging your broken and badly fused back together ankle just isn’t possible.

“I’ll show you to the room,” Cassie says. “You’ll need some fresh clothes to change into. Then we can get you set up with your IVs.”

Right. The IVs. Because apparently they’re extremely malnourished and on the brink of some serious dehydration damage, so they need fluids in them ASAP. Yaz had listened to that part with an apathy that came from having regular health check-ups. She’s needed drips a few times over the course of her life, all from having pushed herself too hard in her early days of competing. Sammy hadn’t looked too thrilled though, so Yaz has already decided to be the most supportive girlfriend ever when it comes time for the needles to go in.

That’s coming later though. For now, her goal is to shower. She pictures the room they’re being taken to as the finishing point of a long race that’s worn her body down in the worst ways possible. She can finally have all the rest and recovery and time with her friends (family) she desperately needs just as soon as she crosses that line.

Cassie leads them through the hospital at an agonisingly slow pace. Yaz grits her teeth against any complaints she has because she knows Cassie is doing this because of her ankle. Still, Yaz is not used to ever being this slow- first because she didn’t know how to be, and then because going at anything other than top speed in Jurassic World was just an invitation for the dinosaurs to have you for lunch.

Will she always have to lag behind like this now? When her ankle is re-broken and then supposedly healed, will she be forced to walk at a snail’s pace? Yaz really doesn’t like not being useful. It’s a glaringly obvious trait of hers, considering she did the extra damage to her stupid foot in the first place because she refused to sit still and let somebody else do the work. Not that Kenji was actually doing any work, but Yaz could have waited for the others to get back. Could have, and chose not to. It’s at the expense of her career and her future, but now it’s starting to feel like it’s at the expense of her autonomy as well.

She sneaks a look at Sammy as they pass by various doors and seemingly get even more lost in this rabbit warren of a hospital. She loves the easy way Sammy walks, like it doesn’t matter how fast she gets somewhere. If being slow means she gets to walk beside Sammy, then maybe it isn’t such a bad thing.

“Okay,” Cassie says, finally bringing their meandering to a stop. “This here is the woman’s shower block. Get in and get started, and I’ll come back with towels and some clothes for you to change into. Then we can get you back to your room and get you set up on some drips.”

Yaz is glad to enter into the space and leave Cassie behind her. Then it’s just her and Sammy, and she feels a weight lift off her chest that she hadn’t even realised was slowly crushing her. Yaz is used to holding heavy things and acting like they don’t bother her, so it’s always a surprise when she finds out she’s taken a far larger burden than she’d realised.

The shower block is small- probably unsurprising for a private hospital- and done up in a mix of pale green and white tiles. There are three fairly sizeable showers, each separated from a row of sinks and a long mirror by a flimsy blue curtain. Yaz scrunches her face up, but she understands the lack of doors. If a patient falls or passes out, the staff need to be able to get in there as quickly as possible to help them. She just doesn’t like how exposed it’s going to make her feel.

Though, she supposes it isn’t any different than the makeshift shower they cobbled together in their camp. At least these ones are tall enough that your head won’t stick out over the top for everyone to see. Yaz had made a lot of awkward eye-contact with Kenji when he was having his 45-minute monstrosities.

“This is nice,” Sammy says, looking around. Her enthusiasm is a far cry from how excited she’d been when they’d been at Mitch and Tiff’s fancy camp and bathroom, but it still reminds Yaz of that gut-wrenching relief of thinking that finally, finally they’d been saved.

They’d been proven wrong soon enough, she thinks bitterly. What could stupid, injured kids do against professional hunters. They’d been practically helpless- only able to get the better of the two thanks to the dinosaurs. If Tiff hadn’t been eaten by something (Darius has theorised it was the Baryonyx) then she probably would have gotten away with the boat and they’d still be on that stupid island, running for their lives and facing near-death every day.

“Yaz, you okay?” Sammy once again breaks through Yaz’s thoughts. She’s been freezing up like this all day, and it’s a chilling reminder of the times on Isla Nublar when the same thing happened.

“I’m fine,” Yaz says. She forces a smile. “Just glad to be off the island.”

“Amen,” Sammy says, playing up her accent for affect. Yaz’s smile suddenly becomes a whole more real. “Now come on. Let’s get clean for like, the first time in forever!”

Yaz forces her body out of its frozen state and steps into one of the cubicles, plastic gripped tightly in her hands. The curtain falls back into place, sealing her off from Sammy and the rest of the room. The shower is pushed far back against the wall, and there’s a slight divot in the floor that will keep the water from running everywhere. A bench runs along the wooden wall with a hook above it, presumably for clothes. The shower has a bench of its own- a fold down one for people who can’t stand. Yaz thinks she probably won’t need it. She’s been standing on her own for the past 7-8 months. Just because she’s had the news broken that her ankle is cooked doesn’t mean she’s going to lose all the functions she did have.

All in all, the set up reminds Yaz of public bathrooms in caravan parks. In her early days of competing- before she had corporate sponsors- she and her mum (or dad) usually were forced to stay in the cheap parks when traveling out of state for events. She’s no stranger to flimsy walls and curtains as privacy.

The familiarity hurts though, because it’s another reminder of all the things Yaz has lost. Sure, she hasn’t been forced to stay in a caravan park in a long time (fancy sponsors means fancy hotels) but it was still a part of her journey into the track star she’d always dreamed of being. Another stop off on a path that now feels pointless.

“This is kinda weird, right?” Sammy’s voice echoes in the room. She’s in the cubicle right next to Yaz- just a wall separating them. “I feel like I’m…well, I’m not sure what it feels like.”

“A public bathroom at a caravan park,” Yaz says quietly. She sits down on the bench outside the shower and starts to weave a plastic shield around her bandaged ankle.

“Yeah! That! I mean, I haven’t ever stayed in one but I’m sure this is what they’re like.”

“This is exactly what they’re like,” Yaz whispers. She lets her hands drop and rests her head against the wall. How stupidly sentimental is she? She’s mourning foot fungus infested shower blocks.

“What was that?” Sammy calls out.

“Nothing,” Yaz says.

She stands back up and gives her foot at quick look over. Yaz hadn’t been lying when she told Anthony she knew how to wrap injuries. If any water manages to sneak through, she’ll be very surprised. She peels her filthy clothes off as quickly as she can, half surprised they haven’t permanently glued themselves to her skin. Even beneath the fabric, her skin is filthy. Island life is not the tropical paradise a lot of people thought it was when you factor in the dinosaurs. Yaz was already used to quick, efficient showers, and she doesn’t believe in wasting energy that could be better used on other things- so she rarely did more than a quick power wash at camp. Why did it matter when she was just going to get dirty two seconds later running from her life from a Baryonyx or a pack of Compys?

Next to her, Sammy’s shower bursts to life. The noise is loud in Yaz’s ears, thanks to the water pressure that seems insanely strong after a year of a tiny trickle. Steam quickly starts to rise- Sammy must have it scalding hot.

It feels awkward just standing there, so Yaz quickly fiddles with the dials to get her own shower started, and steps under the water the second she can tell it’s warm enough. She almost wants to cry at the heat. It feels so good on her aching muscles and filthy hair. Staring down at her feet she can see the dirt draining off her and staining the tiles. She must have barely had a hint of skin left untouched by mud and grime. She keeps staring what for what feels like hours as she waits for the water to finally run clean.

Yaz never wants to move again. She wants to stay here where it’s warm and safe and her thoughts can’t seem to get started because the water keeps washing them away like it’s the dirt covering her. It’s a foreign feeling to waste so much time getting clean, and Yaz rejoices in this small luxury she never used to allow herself. She should get used to it thought. She’ll no longer have any need to move from one thing to another in such a quick timespan.

“This is paradise!” Sammy calls over the water. “I had no idea it was possible to have this much mud on you.”

Yaz closes her eyes and just listens to Sammy’s voice. She’ll say something back eventually, or she’ll turn off the taps. She’ll be Action Yaz again- all movement and not much talk- when the steam fades away and her head clears. Maybe the world will make sense again. Maybe there’s as much psychological muck covering her as there is physical muck. A year of fighting for you life will do that to you. She just needs to wash it down the drain, and then she’ll be fine. She’ll be normal again. The world will click into a gear she’s familiar with.

She needs to loosen up, like she’d told Darius all those months ago. Get out of her head and try something else. Not push ups (her arm hurts from the blood test) but maybe some light stretches. Or maybe she’ll get her hands on some paper and pencils. Drawing always helps to clear her mind as well, even if she’s less inclined to bring attention to it. Doing normal things will help her feel normal again. She should just be able to pick up her life like it’s a book she put down for a few days.

(Or a whole year.)

Sammy’s shower switches off, and Yaz takes it as her cue to do the same. She feels the cold instantly like a jolt to a system, and wraps her arms around herself. Her body starts to shiver and she can’t make it stop. Water from her hair runs down her back and she hesitates to take a step forward in case she slips. Sammy is rustling around like maybe she’s trying to find a towel, and Yaz should do the same- except suddenly, Yaz is frozen. Her thoughts pile back on and prove her hopes that her head would be clearer after the shower wrong. She puts a shaking hand out to support herself against the wall.

She can’t move.

“There are towels on the sink,” Sammy reports. “Cassie must have dropped ‘em off. Oh, and clothes.” Her voice is faint in Yaz’s ears. The cold gnaws at her bones and sinks its teeth into her blood- like a particularly ferocious dinosaur. Her body gives an intense shake as it protests against the thought. There aren’t dinosaurs here- there aren’t. She’s fine, she’s safe.

The hand Yaz has against the wall slips down and nearly takes her with it. Instead, it catches on the flip down bench built into the wall and pulls it out. Yaz’s knees give in to gravity and she all but falls onto it. Her head drops and her hands meet it halfway. She ends up hunched over, clinging to herself as her body wracks with shakes. This isn’t a full factory reset.

It’s a breakdown.

“Yaz? You okay in there?”

Yaz can’t stop the shaking. She can’t pull her hands away from her head and look up. She keeps her eyes closed because she’s terrified if she opens them, she might see the snarling jaw of a dinosaur. She’s not unfamiliar with this sensation, but she has no idea how to work through it. The freezes her body started to force on her the longer they stayed on the island are shameful things she tries not to think about. She kept nearly getting her friends killed, and she’s supposed to be the strongest of them all!

“It’s okay to be scared, Yaz,” Brooklyn had said once, when they’d come across a Dilophosaurus during a supply hunt and Yaz’s body had shut down of its own accord for the first time. Brooklyn had drawn the creature’s attention and then doubled back to pull Yaz out of danger.

“I don’t feel scared,” Yaz had said back. Her breath had been coming fast, and there’d been a dull ache in her ankle. “I don’t know what it is.”

Whatever it is, it’s apparently far from over. She’d thought getting off the island would be a fresh start, a chance to be normal again. She’d be back on control of herself, but instead she just feels like she’s been put on a roller-coaster with no seatbelt and forced to ride it over and over again. It kept her up last night, and it’s wrecking her now.

“I’m gonna come in, Yaz. Okay?” Sammy’s voice still barely reaches Yaz’s ears. “I’m bringing you a towel.”

Yaz tries to force her panicking brain to lock in on what Sammy has said. The cold is freezing her blood in her veins, like it’s trying to put her into cryo-sleep. She almost chokes on a laugh at the thought. Maybe she’s the new frozen flowers.

She hears the curtain get pushed to the side, and then Sammy’s feet appear at the edges of her vision. Yaz is still hunched over, eyes on the ground and unable to move. She feels exposed, but it’s a weak feeling that barely manages to register through whatever the hell her brain is doing to her. There’s a flash of movement from Sammy, and then Yaz is suddenly wrapped in a thick, soft towel that manages to cover the entirely of her curled up body. The warmth shouldn’t be immediate, but somehow the weight of the towel registers to her as heat, and the shaking starts to die out.

“Yaz,” Sammy says. Yaz still can’t see her, but she can feel Sammy’s hands on her shoulders as they rub comforting circles. “Oh, you’re shaking.”

“Cold…” Yaz whispers.

Frozen.

“Let’s get you warmed up then,” Sammy says. It’s her no-nonsense voice that she’s always told Yaz worked wonders on her little sisters when they were mucking about at the ranch. “Sitting here ain’t gonna do anything for you.”

I can’t move, Yaz wants to say. Apparently all she could manage though was the one word, because her lips stay stuck together.

How can Sammy be so normal? Yaz doesn’t understand it. She’s chatting away with doctors and giving them puppy dog eyes to get what she wants. She’s cooing over bathrooms and holding herself together in a way that almost makes Yaz jealous.

“Can you stand up?” Sammy asks. There’s something in her voice that makes Yaz want to look up. Her shakes are starting to stop as the warmth of the towel fully floods her body. Sammy’s hands on her shoulders are grounding her slightly. It’s like the liveliness of her is flooding over to Yaz.

It’s like you’re stealing her life.

NO!

“I’m fine!” Yaz says loudly. She looks up so quickly that Sammy has to step back. Yaz can see her now, nervously locking her fingers together as she stares at Yaz from behind her hair. She’s dressed in white scrubs that look kind of like pyjamas, but also kind of like an outfit you’d wear in a stereotypical cult. Because it’s Sammy though, she makes it look cute and stylish.

“You kinda froze up there, Yaz,” Sammy says uncertainly. “Are you warm now?”

Yeah, because I’m stealing your strength.

“I’m fine,” Yaz repeats. “The towel helps. Thanks.”

Sammy’s face creases with concern, and it’s another reminder of how much of a burden Yaz can be on her. “It’s okay if you’re not okay. I know I’m not.”

“What?”

What?

“I’m not okay,” Sammy says simply. The ease at which she says it twists at Yaz’s heart painfully. Here she is thinking Sammy is fine- because she’s Sammy and she’s cheery and determined and insistent on looking out for people- and all this time, she hasn’t been. Has she been pretending for Yaz’s sake?

“But-you-you’re…” Yaz gives up after three false starts. Really, a race is over on the very first mistake you make. She should know better than to keep trying.

“I’m trying to be,” Sammy says. Her eyes keep darting away, like the green/white tile combination is a far more interesting sight. “For you and for the others, and heck, for myself. But this is so weird. I still don’t feel safe, you know? And we’re out here needing needles and scary tests, and what if that means we hurt ourselves for good? Like your ankle. Who knows what funky stuff is going on in our body. Everything’s a mess, and I don’t know what to do, and I don’t even know what I’m going home to. Is the ranch even there anymore?”

Yaz’s heart breaks in her chest, and she wishes she wasn’t wearing only a towel so she could wrap Sammy in a hug and hold her close. She makes an aborted motion to stand, but her legs seemingly aren’t over their little freeze up and won’t give her any purchase. She nearly slips, and ends up right back on the bench in the shower, with the tap above her dripping on her head and the dirt stained floor leaving her footprints clear for all to see.

“Sammy,” she says. Sammy keeps her eyes averted. “Sammy.”

Sammy looks at her- brown eyes wide and full of pain. How had Yaz not seen the pain? She doesn’t know what to say, and she doesn’t think she can move. Words die out inside her before she can even begin to voice them. She’s a mess- just like Sammy had said everything was. She can’t offer a patented Brooklyn speech, or even lighten the mood with a Kenji-esque joke. All she knows how to be is Yasmina Fadoula, and even that feels up for debate at the moment.

“Let’s get back to the others,” Yaz says finally. She doesn’t know much right now, but she knows she doesn’t want to be alone anymore. And she’s sure it’s the same for Sammy. Maybe she can’t offer the things her friends can, and that’s why they have to be together. Because they each have things they can do. “I bet they’re waiting for us.”

Sammy sniffs, and wipes at her eyes. When had she started crying? “Okay,” she says. “That sounds…that sounds good.”

It sounded better than good. It sounded like home.

Chapter 6: My heart longs to join them, sing songs of the sea

Chapter Text

Sammy doesn’t want to say it- in case it makes her freeze up again- but she’s really, really worried about Yaz.

The thing is though, there’s so many things wrong and so many things to worry about. Sammy- a chronic worrier by nature according to her parents- has her hands and her head full with everything she keeps trying to pick up and think about. Her mind darts from thing to thing and she’s rushing to keep up with it, which is totally not healthy. She should just focus on a few things at once but that feels impossible. Not only does she keep thinking of new things to stress about, other ones just keep popping up naturally as well that demand her attention. It’s because they’re in a hospital receiving treatment for their many (old) injuries. Sammy’s mind and the doctors work in tandem to create fun new obstacles to get her fixated on.

Yaz and her family are right up the top of the list.

The way Yaz had just gotten stuck in there isn’t something Sammy hasn’t seen before, but she likes it less and less every time it happens. To Yaz, she’s trapped in her body in a state of frozen fear, but Sammy is on the outside seeing everything. The fear on Yaz’s face is chilling. Yaz can say all she likes that the freezes aren’t because she’s afraid, but everything else about her tells a different story. Sammy had dared to hope that it was the dinosaurs’ fault it was happening and that it would end once they got off the island, but it seems she should have learnt a lesson about futile dreams.

That being- they’ve been kinda pointless lately.

That must mean it’s stupid to hope that her family and her home are okay. She’d set out to Jurassic World to spy for Mantah Corp in the hopes that it would keep the ranch safe, but she’d sent maybe two things off before it all came crashing down. What are the chances that that was enough to save everything, and that she’ll have a home to come home to? Sammy wants to be optimistic and say it was, but…well…futile dreams and pointless hoping and all that.

She wishes she could just take things one at a time. Yaz had told her once that was how her brain worked- like the runner that she is (was) she created finish lines for herself and kept a focused mind on the task until she’d crossed it. Sammy likes it in theory, but in practice she finds it much harder.

Right now- for instance- she and Yaz are walking back to their room after showering. Sammy is supporting Yaz who is still a little shaky on her feet after her freeze up in the bathroom. This should be the only thing Sammy is focused on. Instead, she may as well be miles away as her brain leaps from problem to problem to problem.

“Do you think the others are back?” Sammy asks. There’s one way she’s able to get her mind to shut up- and it’s by talking. She has a bit of a reputation for being a chatterbox, but she likes that it helps her break out of her internal thoughts, and she knows it helps the others as well.

“Probably,” Yaz says. “We took a while in there.”

Sammy can read the guilt on her face, plain and simple. It makes her want to cup Yaz’s face in her hands and kiss it all away, but the corridor of a hospital probably ranks for the least romantic spot ever- unless you’ve just found out you’re going to survive a horrific illness or something. Still, Sammy likes things to be sweet and romantic, and she actually likes to keep that sort of stuff mostly private. Hand holding and hugging is definitely a go for any time, but sometimes Sammy just wants things to be her and Yaz and nobody else.

“Will we all need IVs?” Sammy wonders. She shudders at the reminder- even though she’s the one who brought it up.

“Probably,” Yaz says again. “It’s not like any of us had a different diet. Frozen pizza, tinned fruit and berries all round.”

Sammy wrinkles her nose. She’s heard bad things about hospital food but the sandwich they got yesterday was leagues above everything they’d had to eat on the island. She can’t wait for something more substantial. Oh, the Sunday potlucks her family had ever week- where the table groaned under the weight of about twenty different dishes. Her mouth waters and-

Yeah, she’s doing it again. Mind wandering, never sitting still.

“Sammy,” Yaz says. They’re drawing closer to the room, and Sammy’s started to pick up the pace somewhat. She’s eager to get back to the rest of the Camp Fam. “Can you…can you not tell the others about my…freeze up.”

“Huh?” Sammy misses a step and nearly falls over. She has to stop and take a second. Sammy tends to read people quite well, and so it’s always a surprise when someone says something she isn’t expecting.

“Please,” Yaz says. She’s drawn to a stop as well. “I don’t want them to know.”

“They knew about them on the island,” Sammy says carefully.

“Because it couldn’t be helped,” says Yaz. “Brooklyn was with me the first time it happened. But here…”

But here nobody had to know, Sammy realises. Yaz can keep it the secret she probably always wanted it to be. Would she have even told Sammy if Brooklyn hadn’t been there to report back on it?

“Please, Sammy,” Yaz says. She sounds scared. “I don’t want them to know.”

“But we’re a family,” Sammy protests. Her voice sounds weak, like she doesn’t really believe it. But she does! She absolutely believes they’re a family. She just also believes that she can’t change Yaz’s decision. She’s made up her mind, and so now she’s going to see this race through to the end.

How does Sammy tell Yaz that her entire life doesn’t have to be a competition?

Yaz gives Sammy a sad look. “Not for much longer.”

Sammy’s heart tumbles into a terrifying free fall in her chest. She shakes her head as if she can get rid of the feeling. “No,” she says. “No.”

“I don’t like it either,” Yaz says. Her eyes track the path of the corridor left for them to walk. Does she think one of the others will walk past?

“If you don’t like it, then don’t say it,” Sammy can’t help but snap. “I thought we talked about this. We’re going to stay together.”

“We can’t,” Yaz says. “How could we-it’s not like we live anywhere close to each other. How could we possible be as close as we were on the island now?”

“People make long distance work all the time,” Sammy says. Her heart refuses to stop tumbling around in its painful palpitations. “Yaz are you…are you saying you want to break up?”

Yaz looks aghast. “No! Of course not, no!”

“Then why are you saying this?”

“I…” Yaz falters, and looks away.

Does Sammy love Yaz more than Yaz loves her? It’s a fear that always lingered during their friendship, and that Sammy had always hated herself for having. She’d known Yaz showed her care and love in different ways, and she’d loved finding out all those ways. Then, when Yaz had confessed first, Sammy had tossed those fears away and dove into the relationship with joy. Yaz felt the same way she did!

It's rude to doubt the other person in your relationship, but if Yaz thinks they’re not going to work, then isn’t it true?

“I don’t want to talk about this right now,” Sammy says. “There’s too much other stuff going on.”

Too much stuff happening inside me that I can’t keep up with.

“When will we talk about?” Yaz asks. She sounds reluctant, but she’s the one who brought it up and now it’s going to be another fear lurking in Sammy’s mind. Yaz might want to break up with her.

“When we know we’re all okay,” Sammy says firmly. “When the tests come back and our parents get here and we know we’re going to be okay.”

Because what if they’re not? Okay, that is. Yaz is already not okay. Her ankle is permanently ruined and even with a surgery to fix it, she’ll never run like she used to again. Yaz says it’s not Sammy’s fault. Sammy knows it is- and she knows everything can get much worse as well. What if Sammy’s test results come back and the Scorpius Rex venom is still inside her? What if Ben’s many Pteranodon scars had been infected with some kind of disease? What if that time Brooklyn had almost drowned meant her lungs were badly damaged? What if Kenji’s brief illness is the start of something much worse?

She needs these people- these five people who have become her entire life- to be alright.

Maybe that can be her goal, her finish line if she wants to borrow Yaz’s metaphor. Sammy can push everything else to the side- her family and her ranch and her fears that Yaz may be pulling away- and force her mind to narrow in on this one specific end point. The test results. The test results. The test results.

Yes, they may be bad, and Sammy is terrified of that. But this also gives her a chance to run through different situations and prepare for each one. Then it won’t hurt as much, because it won’t be a surprise.

Huh…this might just be another way to overthink things. But, it’s still only one thing to focus on! So it’s…progress…of a sorts.

“Sammy?” Yaz says uncertainly. She speaks quietly but her voice still reaches Sammy- lost in her thoughts though she is. “Are you-I mean…will you keep it a secret?”

Sammy holds back a sigh, and reaches for Yaz’s hand. “Of course I will,” she says, because she may not agree with Yaz but she does understand her and how she’s feeling. “But please, will you at least tell me? If it happens and I’m not around.”

Yaz’s face softens. “I will,” she says. “I promise.” She holds Sammy’s hand a little tighter, as if to say I’m here.

They start walking again at the exact same time, without either of them needing to prompt the other into it. It reminds Sammy of how in sync they could be sometimes on Isla Nublar. They’d take off running at the same time, and then pull up to a stop at the same time as well. Yaz would hold out a water bottle just as Sammy started to look for one, and Sammy would tell Yaz to rest right before Yaz realised her ankle was hurting. It was cute, and it was proof of their time spent together. A bond forged in the fires of danger- Kenji had dramatically proclaimed once. Over the top, but Sammy had secretly agreed.

When Sammy opens the door, she feels something click into place inside her as she sees the other four people that make up her new family waiting for them. They’re all on separate beds, dressed in the same white scrubs she and Yaz have ended up with, and stuck in spot thanks to the IVs they’ve been given.

“Yaz! Sammy!” Brooklyn looks up with a wide smile. “You made it!”

“Took our time in the showers,” Sammy says. Yaz tenses, but Sammy ploughs on. “Wasn’t it so nice to actually have hot water!”

“I never wanted to leave,” Kenji says. “Ben had to drag me out.”

Sammy takes in his curled up legs and tense arms, and feels a pang of worry. Something’s wrong with him. Kenji takes up space like it’s a job he can get a promotion in- all long limbs sprawled everywhere in a way that should be annoying but really isn’t, because he’s warm and loving and makes you feel safe. That’s not him now though. He looks pale and upset. Sammy aches to ask him what’s up.

“How’d y’alls tests go?” Sammy heads over to one of the free beds with Yaz right behind her. They climb up together and cuddle up. They’ll most likely be separated once the doctors come by to put the needles in, and Sammy intends to hold Yaz for as long as she can before that happens.

“Fine,” Ben says shortly. There’s an edge to his voice that tells Sammy not to press him. He doesn’t look good either. Must have been something that happened in Ben and Kenji’s session, if it’s the both of them upset.

Thankfully, Darius and Brooklyn seem okay. A little tired looking, but no worse than they had been when they set off this morning. It’s a relief, because Sammy had been really worried about Darius after yesterday. She’s seen him stay so strong and composed for them for a whole year- and she can’t blame him for breaking down but it was still upsetting to see. She just hates that it seems to be at the expense of Ben and Kenji.

That’s probably not the right way to look at it, of course. It’s not like Darius is happy because Ben and Kenji aren’t, but it just feels like none of them can all be happy at once. It’s always gotta be some mix of both. Though, Sammy wouldn’t say Darius and Brooklyn are happy- maybe just better than they were. And so-

Oh, can’t her mind shut up?!

She holds Yaz’s hand tighter and tries to use the sensation to ground herself. She’s here, in the present. She’s living in this moment and not an imagined future.

(Isn’t that the reason she ended up on the island because she couldn’t take her minds off things? Her parents said the ranch would be fine, and that they’d make it through like they always did. It was Sammy and her branching thoughts that couldn’t ignore the possibility that they might not be.)

“Do you guys need these as well?” Darius gestures to the needle in his arm, and Sammy has to look away.

“Yeah,” Yaz says. “I guess they’ll be round soon to do it.”

“Heard anything about your parents?” Brooklyn asks.

Sammy’s stomach churns, and she tries to keep her mind focused on the test results they’ll hopefully get soon. “Nope,” she says with false lightness. “I guess it’s gotta be soon though, right? It’s almost been twenty-four hours.”

“They could already be here,” Ben mutters. “And they’re just not allowed to see us.”

There’s a brief pause.

“They wouldn’t do that,” Sammy says. She’s trying to convince herself as much as she’s trying to convince Ben. “We’re literally minors.”

Ben shrugs. “I don’t trust these guys. And they said it themselves, we might have rare tropical diseases. They could be quarantining us.”

“I think quarantining means we don’t just get to walk around the hospital having showers in public bathrooms,” Darius says. “Or have the doctors just run a bunch of tests without any protection.”

“They wore gloves,” Ben points out.

“More protection,” Darius amends.

Sammy picks at her fingernails with her free hand. Darius is offering logical, sound points that make sense. But Ben is tapping into her emotions and she’s not very good at swaying those when they get going. She glances nervously at Yaz, hoping to see who she’s agreeing with. Yaz is frowning- looking back and forth between Darius and Ben. Looks like she’s as conflicted as Sammy is.

“They’ll be here soon,” Brooklyn says- putting on her voice that is meant to stop disagreements. “And so will our test results. And then…”

She trails off abruptly. Sammy fills in the blank with uncomfortable ease.

Soon we’ll be going home.

“And then we can go from there,” Brooklyn finishes finally, with a smile that’s definitely forced. She’s better at faking her emotions than most- thanks to her social media lifestyle- but this attempt is painfully flimsy. Looks like for all Brooklyn has insisted they’ll get through this, she’s starting to feel the same fears as the deadline to the end of their time together draws closer.

There’s a knock on the door before anyone can say anything else- not that Sammy wants to say anything- and her and Yaz’s doctors stick their heads in. Both are armed with the equipment that will have Sammy and Yaz joining the rest of their friends in the drip department. Sammy shudders, but offers them a smile anyway. It’s the polite thing to do.

“Separate beds please,” Anthony says, just like Sammy knew he would. It still hurts though- because prophesising different outcomes doesn’t actually make them any easier to deal with. She gives Yaz a tight hug and then slides off the bed to climb onto the only remaining free one. She’s still next to Yaz, but the distance seems to stretch between them like a rolling ocean.

Anthony goes over to Yaz and Cassie approaches Sammy. She’d told the others yesterday that she’s not afraid of needles, but it’s a bit of a lie. The stinging reminds her of the time she stood on the edge of a wasp nests and ended up getting stung five times before her dad got to her. It’s easy to do it with someone beside her to keep her calm, but now she and Yaz have been separated, and everything else is also stuck in their beds. She’s going to have to do it alone.

She averts her eyes as Cassie reaches for her arm. It’s fine, she tells herself. She literally had a blood test yesterday and those take way longer than a simple poke into the body. She just has to use her overactive mind again to distract her. She can pretend it’s a superpower (even though it’s generally just an annoyance) and if she just follows a rabbit down a hole in her mind and-

“All done,” Cassie says. Sammy turns back to her, blinking in shock because she can’t seem to make her mouth work to say anything. “Just sit tight, okay? We’ll bring you guys some more food as well.”

“Wait,” Brooklyn says, before Cassie and Anthony can leave. Sammy spies Yaz eyeing her pole with the bag of fluids apprehensively. “Our parents. They should be here soon, right?”

Cassie and Anthony exchange a look. “We won’t know how far away they are until they get here,” Anthony says. “The hospital is quite hard to get to. You need to charter specific vehicles to get out here.”

The two of them leave at that. The six campers stare at the closed door.

“Translation,” Kenji says bitterly. “This is an expensive as f*ck private hospital to stay in, and it’s expensive as f*ck to actually get here as well.”

“Expensive…” Sammy can feel her face pale. There’s no way her parents can afford this. “How do you think-”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Kenji says in a rush, cutting her off. “They wouldn’t be treating us if there wasn’t some kind of payment happening.”

Sammy bites her lip. That’s exactly what she’s afraid of. If her parents are sacrificing everything they have so she can sit in a fancy hospital when she’s pretty much fine. She’d sooner rip the needle out her arm and sleep outside then have them fall further into financial ruin because of her. She’d tried so hard to help them- she can’t be the reason the ranch falls apart.

If it’s even still together at all.

“If not, I’m sure we can make Jurassic World pay for our medical fees,” Brooklyn chimes in. “I mean, hello, lawsuit waiting to happen. They left us on Isla Nublar for a year.”

“If there’s even still a company to sue,” Ben mumbles. “Could be long bankrupt.”

“Let’s not worry about it,” Darius says. He laughs self-consciously, and picks at one of his bandages. “I know I was the one freaking out yesterday, and I’m sorry for that. But…we got through so much on the island. There’s a…what’s the word…”

“Precedent?” Brooklyn suggests.

“Precedent for us to get through the sh*t stuff,” Darius finishes, giving her a grateful smile.

“Language,” Kenji chides.

“You were literally swearing a second ago,” Yaz says.

Sammy gives a little laugh. It’s the moments like these that keep her going, even though that’s a total cliché to say. She’s not the only one to feel like this, she knows. She can see Kenji perk up a little bit at the chance to tease Darius, who responds the same way Sammy’s sister would when she mucked around with them- by flicking Kenji the finger. And Yaz and Brooklyn are exchanging a knowing eye-roll that has both of them giggling in a ‘can you believe them’ way. Even Ben seems to relax slightly as he listens to the chatter.

How can Sammy even begin to believe that it’s okay for them to split up? How can she- when they’re all the reason each other is alive. They split up to see doctors and it inspires such a bone crushing dread in Sammy that she can’t even think straight until they’re back together.

She has to be the positive one though. That’s her job. It hadn’t started out like that, but Sammy knows she’s naturally chatty and friendly. She likes to get to know people, and she likes to have fun. Maybe she’s not as joke ready as Kenji is, but there’s a reason the two of them were able to laugh the most on the island. And Sammy saw how that laughing made her friends feel. The fact that she could, meant that maybe there was a chance they could as well. If they couldn’t, well, then Sammy was able to laugh for them anyway.

It's hard to put on a smile even when you don’t mean it, but Sammy is willing to if it means everyone else thinks there’s a chance they can be happy.

“Right,” she says. “Um…what was everyone’s favourite memory from the island?”

When she used to start conversations like this, she’d get a lot of weird looks, but now they expect it.

“Not dying,” Yaz says dryly, but she gives Sammy such a fond look that Sammy knows what her real answer is. She blows Yaz a kiss with the arm not stuck with a needle.

“I mean, I know the dinosaurs were pretty scary,” Darius begins. He’s got that sheepish look on his face that usually means he’s about to start rattling off fun facts about Sauropods or something. “But getting to see them that close was amazing.”

“There’s a different between getting close and being inches away from their teeth,” Kenji says. “But-uh-the watering hole was kinda cool.”

“Majestic,” Darius says, with a knowing smile.

“Um…” Brooklyn taps a finger against her chin. “Unboxing Jurassic World was fun. Even if half the time we just got more questions than answers. And the answers we got were usually just ‘it’s a dinosaur’. I liked the investigating.”

“Bumpy,” Ben says simply. His eyes are miles away. Sammy feels a pang. She misses Bumpy as well, but she knows her pain can’t be anywhere near as much as what Ben is feeling.

“And you?” Yaz asks. Sammy always does the asking that prompts them out of their shells, and then she forgets she has to answer.

“Um…” Sammy thinks. “The gondola trip was fun before the dinosaur birds got us.”

“Sammy, we’ve been over this,” Darius says. “They’re not dinosaur birds. They’re technically-”

“Oh great,” Kenji says, but his eyes are fond, and Sammy thinks she can see some colour returning to his cheeks. “You got him going on a dino rant.”

Sammy smiles innocently, even though she’d done it on purpose. Darius’ dino rants never fail to get everyone involved in fun, argumentative ways. She hopes it takes their mind off of everything, though she knows it won’t work on her. Her mind is already adrift as it dances back to the prospect of not being able to pay for the hospital stay.

It’s funny, she thinks. She asked them what their favourite parts about the island were, and not a single person said anything about the six of them.

It’s because it’s a given. It’s too obvious. It will always be them if an outsider asks. The six teens- the Camp Fam. But internally, when there’s no one else around? There’s no need to say it. They just know.

“Hey, guys,” Darius suddenly breaks off mid rant, the arm that’s been waving around madly dropping as he curls his fingers together. “Um…I’m really sorry about yesterday.”

“You already said that,” Brooklyn says.

“I wanna say it again,” Darius says. He has his leader voice on- the one that always made the others sit up and listen, even if it meant interrupting a moment of peace, or a legendary Kenji prank. They responded, because it usually meant they were about to make it through something really tough with only Darius’ guidance to be their weapon. “I got all in my head, but I shouldn’t have actually said it. Not when everything was still so fresh and we didn’t know what was going on. It wasn’t fair.”

“It’s okay,” Sammy says instantly. She doesn’t want Darius to hurt like this. She’d been upset to see so many of her friends despondent, but she’d understood. Well, she’d tried to understand. “You’re allowed to be sad about this.”

Darius bows his head. He’s so young, Sammy thinks. They’re all young- yes- but he’s the youngest of them all. He shouldn’t have had to take up the weight of leadership. It’s not his fault his special interest was perfectly suited to the death trap they ended up in.

“We are going to stay together,” he says fiercely. It’s the same determination that saw them come out alive time and time again. “We are. I don’t know how, but that’s okay. We didn’t know how things were gonna turn out heaps of times, and then they always did. We’re gonna make this work.”

Nobody says ‘how’ or ‘we can’t’ or ‘it’s impossible’. They just nod, because if Darius says they can do something, then surely they can. At least, that’s what Sammy hopes they’re all thinking. It’s certainly what she is.

“If dinosaurs can’t break us apart, then our parents can’t,” Darius says. He sounds so sure of it.

“That might work if my parent was someone different,” Kenji mutters. He probably means for nobody to hear him, but his bed is right next to hers (she’s in the middle with Yaz on one side and him on the other, directly opposite Darius) and so she does.

She opens her mouth to echo his point for everyone, but then closes it. That’s not Sammy’s story to share. She’s lucky. She’s fairly certain her parents would find any way possible to keep her close to her friends. It’s their downfall, and she hates it as much as she loves it. They’re so kind and caring that they’ll give everything they have away, and trust the wrong person much too easily. It’s why the ranch was struggling in the first place.

It's a good point to make though. And she hates that everything they want for the future is currently so dependant on other people. On the island, it was the adults that had let them down time and time again. She likes Dave and Roxy, but it’s a conflicted sort of like where she also knows that they failed at their jobs. Hap was a rare outlier, but he died- and Tiff, Mitch and the Wu team certainly made their lives absolute hell. There’s a precedent (thanks for that word Brooklyn) there that indicates adults cannot be trusted. How can everyone expect Sammy and the others to just let go of that mistrust?

“We should just move in together,” she says. It’s a joke- literally just a joke- but Brooklyn perks up instantly. There’s a wild look in her eyes that Sammy recognises from whenever she took them traipsing over the island in search of clues.

“Like an influencer house,” she says.

Yaz groans. “I love you, Brooklyn, but absolutely not like that.”

“I was joking,” Sammy starts to say, but she thinks it goes unheard, because Brooklyn is still talking.

“Okay, so not like an influencer house, but something like it. We get a house with six bedrooms- because it’s totally important to have your own space even if you’re dating- and we pick somewhere central!”

“Who’s gonna pay for it?” Kenji asks sceptically.

“It’s a joke,” Sammy tries again, but Brooklyn doesn’t let it.

“What happened to ‘being rich is my only personality’?”

“It’s not my money.”

Ben is shaking his head. “There’s a lot of holes in this plan.”

“Which we can fill in,” Brooklyn says. There’s such ferocious eagerness in her tone that Sammy starts to wonder if Brooklyn was fully sure of their ability to stay together, or if Darius hadn’t been the only person she wanted to convince.

“Guys!” Sammy raises her voice, because she can’t let this go on. “I was joking!”

Brooklyn deflates instantly. “Yeah,” she says. “I mean-duh-of course you were joking. Us, living together. That’s silly. We were pretty annoying when we were on the island, after all.”

“No, that’s not what I mean,” Sammy says. She won’t let Brooklyn twist her words to hurt herself like that. “Us living together would be amazing. We were perfect on the island. We didn’t even go Lord of the Flies on each other. But it was a joke. I was making a joke. Nobody’s gonna let us do that. We’re kids. We can’t pay for it. We can’t support ourselves. And our families would miss us crazy. And I know maybe it’s not the same for everyone- but I’d miss my family too! Not just you guys. My mum and my dad and my sisters and everyone!”

She needs them to understand that there has to be a balance. Her thoughts split out like a stream snaking through the countryside, and she simply cannot bring herself to only follow one path. Sammy loves a lot of people and a lot of things and she can’t choose one over the other. It hurts, but it’s the way everything works.

It’s the way her world works.

“Sammy,” Yaz starts to say.

“Please,” Sammy says. “You don’t have to say anything. I just needed you guys to know. This isn’t easy for me. I feel…torn in half. I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to apologise for,” Yaz says. Sammy wants to laugh. She knows how some of the others feel about their families, and she does have to apologise for how much hers love her, when they don’t even get to have that.

She opens her mouth to say just that, but she’s interrupted by a knock on the door.

Everyone tenses- Ben especially- as it swings open and they see someone standing there that Sammy doesn’t recognise. A nurse, perhaps.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” they say. “But some of your parents have arrived.”

Chapter 7: As my comrades call to stand fast and forge on

Chapter Text

Brooklyn hates herself for this, but when the nurse says some of their parents have arrived, she crosses her fingers and her toes and hopes that hers aren’t among them.

It’s a knee-jerk reaction that she isn’t sure she’d do a second time over- maybe it’s in her mind because Sammy had just been talking about her own family- but it’s there and she has to live with it. It’s not that she doesn’t like her parents- she loves her dads even if they have their spats about various things- but their arrival signals the beginning of an end that she never wanted to get to. She’s tried to be a glue that holds the Camp Fam together in this awful in between period that has them with one foot still on the island and one foot back in their homes, but it’s clear that there will never be a way to fix something like this. Sammy is right- plain and simple. They’re just kids in the eyes of everyone else.

It's different within the six of them. Brooklyn looks at her newfound family and sees survivors. She sees people who have gone to hell and come back. She sees community, and leadership, and a whole heap of other words she’d use in the tags of a video if she ever uploaded this story to YouTube.

She sees them all struggle- herself included. She can see the way they’re all trying to cope. And she knows it’s hard, but she never wants to look at anything else except them ever again.

If it’s her parents who’ve arrived, then she knows she’s about to have that want cruelly torn away.

Brooklyn’s dads aren’t as overprotective as other parents (looking at Ben’s mum) and they’ve let her travel around the world doing a lot of dangerous things that would frighten a lot of regular people. But…it’s hard to explain- but her dads have limits on weird things that still leave Brooklyn feeling trapped even as she scuba dives to sunken wrecks or goes AWOL for a week crossing a vast desert. They micro-manage her life in all the ways they possibly can, to make up for the fact that there are other areas they can’t. Sammy says she’d miss her family if they all lived together somewhere else. Brooklyn genuinely can’t decide if she would.

Brooklyn hasn’t ever had a friend who wasn’t someone she met online, and they’ve all been vetted by her dads. She gets to meet up with other influencers (is that what she even is?) occasionally but it’s always for collabs that are 100% faked for the camera. Her dads worry about her personal life- because she’s simply refused to let them worry about the adventures she goes on- and she lets them, because she feels bad that she hasn’t let them have a normal time raising their daughter. It was her choice to try and make it big online, and she wouldn’t let them say no.

Ten-year-olds are apparently very convincing.

These days she wonders what would have happened if they’d put their foots down and she’d listened, or if they’d tried harder instead of giving into her whims like she actually had the power over them. Maybe she’d have had a normal childhood, but she wouldn’t be here right now either. Countless near-death experiences have left her scarred and scared, but Brooklyn is terrified of a reality where she never went to Jurassic World at all.

These thoughts cross her mind in a matter of seconds-because she’s thought about them a lot- and then she violently snaps back into the present as the nurse waits for someone to speak.

Darius finds his voice first; Brooklyn is glad he hasn’t lost it. “Whose parents?” he asks. The words tremble, but he wears a look of determination that Brooklyn has come to know so very well.

The nurse shakes their head. “I’m not sure, sorry.”

Brooklyn bites back a retort (then what’s the point of this) and tries for a smile that feels fake. “Are they coming up?” she asks. She refuses to let any worry seep into her tone, even though it’s pressing at her.

Are my dads about to walk into the room right now?

“No,” the nurse says, thankfully. “They’ve been asked to wait in the lobby for now. We’re still waiting for results on your infectious disease tests.”

So they are under quarantine? Nobody’s walking around in Hazmat suits and sealing them up inside heavy plastic barriers, like Brooklyn had seen in her Unboxing Chernobyl video, but she supposes hospital staff in an area so full of tropical jungles would have the proper vaccinations. Parents from the USA would be an entirely different story. The sleuthing part of Brooklyn’s brain nearly diverts the conversation to start asking questions.

It’s then that Brooklyn actually realises what the nurse has said beyond just ‘you might have diseases’. They have time. Their parents are here but it isn’t over yet.

Still, it feels like she’s teetering on the edge of a cliff. Maybe the look out cliff with the vast expanse of Isla Nublar spread out before her, and the screech of angry Dimorphodons behind her. There’s no way except forward, but she isn’t ready to take the plunge yet. In fact, the only reason she’d been brave enough to do it the first time was because she had Yaz at her side.

Brooklyn looks around at the others. She can see her exact feelings mirrored on their faces. Slight joy (because they’re going to see their parents again!) mixed with a whole lot of fear. Only Kenji looks entirely miserable. Brooklyn can easily guess why, but she won’t broach the subject unless he wants to.

“Do we have to wait until the results come back?” Sammy asks. One of her legs is bouncing in anticipation, and she keeps glancing between Yaz and the door. Stuck between a rock and a hard place- her parents and the girl she loves. Not that either Sammy or Yaz have said the L-Word yet, but Brooklyn knows both of them feel it.

“Unfortunately, yes,” the nurse says.

Brooklyn forces herself to swallow down another scathing comment (then why tell us at all?) but it’s a little harder this time. Really, what is the point of telling them this if there’s nothing that can be done? The nurse can’t even tell them whose parents have arrived and put them out of their misery. Brooklyn’s dads could be sitting downstairs and she’s none the wiser.

“Can you go back and ask who’s here?” Yaz asks. “Just so we know.”

“I’ve got a few stop offs, but I’ll do that as soon as I can,” the nurse says. It’s probably the best answer they could have gotten (they could have said no, after all) but Brooklyn still wishes she could yank the needle out of her arm and run downstairs to see who’s waiting. Just so she can be sure. Just so she knows.

The nurse leaves, and all hell breaks loose.

“Who do you think it is?” Sammy bursts out.

“We don’t even know how many are there,” Darius says. “They just said some.”

“So more than one, I assume?” Yaz says. “Probably more than two as well, otherwise why would it be hard to just check who they’re here for.”

“Are they gonna take us home straight away?” Kenji wants to know. His skin is a sickly pale white that makes Brooklyn fear for his stomach. “Or do we have to wait?”

“Wait for what?” Ben all but snaps. “There isn’t anything the hospital can do here that a hospital back home couldn’t do.”

“Except give us the test results,” Darius says. “We have to wait for those.”

“How long do those kinda things usually take?” Yaz asks. “I mean…is it like, an hour, or a day?”

“Never had one before,” Sammy shrugs. “But surely it’s not too long. Mine had some complications apparently but I dunno know why.”

Brooklyn’s head buzzes as it follows the conversation. She knows she should be talking- usually she’s all over this kinda stuff- but she doesn’t know where to jump in, and she doesn’t know what to say. Her eyes dart from person to person as the questions and concerns pile up on top of each other.

“I wish we had phones,” Sammy is saying. “Then we could text and find out.”

Brooklyn thinks of her long gone phone, and of Sammy hiding it out of desperation to keep her family safe. She wonders what she would have done if her parents had been threatened like that. She can’t find an answer that sits right with her.

“What do we do?” Darius asks. Brooklyn has always appreciated how he never tries to overstep the leadership they gave him. He never wanted it, but he does his best with it- making sure everyone gets a say.

Though…she gets the feeling now he’s not asking for input in a situation he already has an answer to. He has nothing. He doesn’t know what to do.

And neither does Brooklyn.

She’s tried. Ever since they got here, she’s tried so hard to work something out. Live in the moment, she’s said. Cross the bridge when they get to it. Heck, she’s suggested they all live together. Sammy had said it was a joke, but Brooklyn had latched onto that joke with a ferocity that had genuinely surprised her. She’d thought she was coping with the imminent separation. She’d been wrong.

“We wait to see who it is,” Ben says. He picks at a scab that’s slowly turning into a scar. A little part of Brooklyn wonders why it hasn’t been covered up like hers are. “Then we go from there.”

“I hope it’s not my dad,” Kenji says quietly- probably quiet enough that he hopes it’ll get drowned out, but they all hear it. Brooklyn turns to look at him. He’s curled his legs up as best he can- what with the IV line- and his resting his chin tentatively on his knees. It’s a textbook ‘I need comfort’ position and Brooklyn can’t even get up to offer it to him.

He’s brave, she thinks. Kenji. He doesn’t often show it, but he is. He’s afraid right now and yet he’s still saying something that Brooklyn is too much of a coward to admit.

“If it’s your dad, I’ll bite him,” Ben says.

“What’s with you and biting?” Yaz snorts, but her eyes are fixed on Kenji, assessing.

“If it’s your dad…” Darius starts to say something, then trails off. “Kenji, is he-”

“Oh,” Kenji says. He gives a laugh- high pitched and nervous. “No, I mean-it’s-it’s fine. I’m just saying. He’s pretty distant, you know. And busy. Super busy. So if he is here, I feel bad he’s gonna have to wait.”

It’s clearly a lie- a diversion- but Brooklyn doesn’t have it in her to call him out over it. Not when she’s biting her tongue to prevent herself from saying the same thing, and when her conflicting feelings are obviously nowhere near as bad as his are.

“It’s probably not him anyway,” Kenji goes on. “Like I said, super busy. He’ll probably have to wait a bit to get out here.”

It’s another lie, but Brooklyn hopes it becomes truth anyway. She doesn’t want Mr Kon anywhere near Kenji if this is who he turns his son into. Kenji is…well, he’s annoying. But he does it on purpose, and when he’s not trying to get a rise out of someone, he’s kind and caring and he loves them all so much. If Mr Kon can’t see this side of Kenji, then he doesn’t deserve to see Kenji at all.

“I just wish we knew,” Yaz says, accepting Kenji’s lies- not because she can’t see them but because he clearly doesn’t want to talk about them. Her voice is purposefully flat, even with how emotionally loaded her words are. “Then we could make a plan.”

Plans are good. Plans are lifesaving. Maybe if Brooklyn had a plan right now, she wouldn’t feel like she was about to free dive off a cliff while a pack of dinosaur birds (sorry not sorry, Darius) swarmed her.

“I…” she finds her voice, but it’s brief and she loses it almost instantly. What can she even say in this situation? “We don’t…”

We don’t know yet.

Story of their life, right? They never know. Every investigation leads to more questions. Every answer is accompanied by a need for two more. Brooklyn fights, and she claws her way towards information, but she just ends up with blood-stained empty hands. She never likes what she ends up with.

They’re in a lose, lose situation now, really. It doesn’t matter whose parents are downstairs. All that matters is whoever they are, they’ve come to tear the campers apart. The equations are different, but the results are the same. Brooklyn likes the way maths makes sense, but in this case- this equation made of living people- it’s just all wrong. Two plus two always equals four. One plus two can’t equal four.

But…three plus one equals four. Ten minus six equals four. Different numbers being forced together or pulled apart can still get you to the same end point.

Six divided by six is one.

“Guys,” she says, and it’s a single word but her voice still breaks on it. “How do we…how do we do this? How do we just…leave?”

Nobody seems to be able to look her in the eyes. Ben keeps his fixed firmly on the door. Kenji’s dart around. Sammy and Yaz exchange a despairing look that she’s not let in on, and Darius buries his head in his hands so she can’t see his face at all. All in all, it’s a pretty clear answer.

None of them know.

Brooklyn knows the girl who arrived at Jurassic Park is different from who she is today. There’re the obvious changes- the cuts and scrapes that have become scars littering her body. The mostly brown hair with just a few hints of the pink it once was. The bones that press sharply against her skin in protest of how little food she’s gotten. They all add up to a Brooklyn that clashes painfully with the Brooklyn of old. But it’s not just these obvious differences. Lying beneath the surface are the mental scars.

She gets nightmares. Bad ones. They seize up her body in the night and she wakes up unable to breathe, unable to move, unable to do anything but lie there until finally it fades away. The smallest of noises send adrenaline coursing through her body as she prepares to face whatever threat her brain has perceived is coming her way. The smallest things seem to frustrate her, but then huge problems barely warrant a blink of her eyes.

When she can’t see anyone else, she thinks she might die.

It’s not hyperbolic for Brooklyn to say she wouldn’t be alive without any of the others. It’s simply the truth. She knows exactly how many times she’d be dead in the ground if it wasn’t for every single one of them, but it’s not just that. She needs them so she can function. She’s a person when they’re around. And when they’re gone…

Brooklyn can’t say for certain she exists.

It’s hitting her now as the reality of their future draws closer and closer. All her talks and speeches were for nothing. They’re just meaningless words that put a tiny bandage over a gaping wound. It worked fine for a temporary patch job, but it needs a bigger fix- and Brooklyn doesn’t have anything that could do it. She’s just a kid. She’s only ever been a kid. A stupid, vapid kid who never knows when to quit. She’s stubborn, but it’s not a good quality like her dads always said it was. She digs her heels in too deep and gets herself stuck. She’s told the others they can handle this, but they can’t. But she said they could, so she isn’t allowed to go back on it now. She has to be Brooklyn- internet superstar adored by over twenty-seven million people.

It doesn’t matter that she isn’t that Brooklyn anymore, and that she hasn’t been in a long time. That’s the Brooklyn of the mainland, and so she’ll have to be her once more. Isla Nublar Brooklyn has to die, like she should have a hundred times over.

She looks around at the others once more, drinking in the sight of them like it’s the last time she’ll ever see them.

There’s Ben, deceptively scrawny and scarred in a way that is probably horrifying to most outsiders, but isn’t to Brooklyn. She loves the proof that he’s a survivor. She loves how alert he is, and how determined he is to keep them safe. She doesn’t think she’ll be able to sleep without knowing his watchful eye is protecting them.

And Kenji. Sweet, sweet Kenji. He talks a big game but at the end of the day, he’s a softy with a heart of gold. Brooklyn loves the way he tries to cheer them all up, even if it’s at the expense of his cool guy image. He thinks the injuries he takes make him weak, but Brooklyn knows they’re all examples of how hard he’s worked to keep them together.

Sammy- how could Brooklyn ever have been so mean to her? Sammy is chatty, and easily distracted, and she loves so fiercely that it would probably hurt, if Brooklyn didn’t appreciate it so much. She brings a smile to the worst of moments- when all hope seems lost. Even when she faced down her own death, she worried for Brooklyn.

And with Sammy comes Yaz. Brooklyn knows she and Yaz had a rocky relationship, but their bond now is one forged in the fires of Jurassic World. Every time Yaz stumbles with her ankle, Brooklyn is reminded of the lengths she went to when keeping them all safe. Even when she was the fastest, Yaz refused to let anyone fall behind.

Then there’s Darius. Dino nerd extraordinaire. Unwilling leader facing down untold dangers. Brooklyn feels guilty for the weight she rested on his shoulders time and time again. Darius always says he doesn’t mind, and that’s what makes it so painful. He’s the youngest of them all. The gentlest, the kindest. He never deserved anything the island threw at him, even if he always faced it far more bravely than any of them could. She’s hurt him- she’s hurt them all- and he forgives her because that’s who he is.

Brooklyn wants to do something for him. For of all of them. She wants to perform the type of miracle you only get to see in cheesy sitcoms and cheap airport novels- where despite everything that says otherwise, everyone stays together. Parents don’t exist, and money isn’t an issue. Trauma fades away in favour of skipping straight to a happy ending where they all have a dance party, or hang out in the pool. Unless you’re overly attached to the characters, it’s the type of story you forget pretty much the second you finish it.

That’s what Brooklyn wants. To be forgettable. Her and the rest of her new family. She doesn’t want media hype and she doesn’t want to cultivate an online persona. She’d always thought that’s what she wanted, but it’s not anymore. She just wants to exist in a space where she feels safe.

And to feel safe, she needs them.

Brooklyn is only fourteen. She knows logically she had a birthday while on the island, but she has no way of knowing when. She feels older, but it’s a tired sort of old where she knows someone her age shouldn’t have gone through half the sh*t she did. It’s a disconnect she feels in her very core. On the outside, and in the eyes of the law, she’s still a child. On the inside she has aged a decade.

You can’t use a mental age though. Not for things like buying a house or moving out of home. She’s old enough to be left on an island and fight for survival, but not old enough to continue that independence back in society. It sucks. It f*cking sucks. If they didn’t want her or any of the others to develop faster than anyone should, then they shouldn’t have left them in the first place!

Being angry at the situation was a bit of a time waster back on the island. The longer they stayed, the harder it was to waste their energy on such pointless outburst. They just had to deal with the cards they’d been given. That wasn’t to say there hadn’t been times where all they could do was rage against how unfair it was. They all had their moments about it- sure. Especially in the early days when it was so fresh in their minds, and right when it had all gone to sh*t, of course. Brooklyn remembers Ben collapsing to the ground and his defeated voice.

“We’re dead.”

No, Brooklyn thinks. Not dead. Not yet.

But different. Changed. Hurt and scarred. Older and wiser, and still just kids.

“We should just stage a protest,” Brooklyn says. She tries for a light tone to alleviate the growing tension, but all she can hear is the sadness in her voice- tinged with futile hope. “So we can stay together. Tie ourselves to the beds or something.”

“They could just untie us,” Yaz says flatly. Brooklyn’s shoulders start to slump in defeat, but then Yaz continues. “We have a better chance of just picking someone and stowing away with them for the ride home.”

Kenji lifts his head. “If you guys come with me, I’m pretty sure you can hide in my mansion without my dad even noticing.”

“I did wanna try your bowling alley,” Darius says thoughtfully.

“Oh, there’s plenty of room on the ranch as well,” Sammy says. “If you like cows.”

“Haven’t met a cow personally,” says Ben. “But they can’t be worse than stampeding Sauropods.”

It’s another joke- like Sammy’s. Brooklyn knows logically it can never happen. But it still feels nice to hear the lengths they would go to for each other. Although…

“Guys,” she says. “I know we can’t all stay together. For now. Cause we’re kids, and we have parents, and like…you know. Reality calls. But…we can do something like this, right?”

“Like this?” Kenji echoes.

“Trips to see each other,” Brooklyn says. The words fall out of her mouth in a rush as she desperately tries to convince them. “Holidays. Catch ups. I know we live far apart but I’ll pay for it all- I have heaps of savings from the channel! And I can organise it all as well if the planning stresses you out. I’ll convince your parents and I’ll work out where we can go and-”

“Woah, Brooklyn, slow down,” Darius interrupts, not unkindly. She feels a stab of fear pierce her heart. “You don’t have to do all the organising. We can help as well. Share the load, like we did on Nublar.”

“You mean…”

You want to do it?

“You’re in?”

“Well, duh,” Sammy says. “If dinos aren’t gonna split us up, then what is?”

“But-but before!” Brooklyn splutters. She can’t believe these guys sometimes, she really can’t. They make it sound so easy. “When we first got here. You were all so miserable about it. Saying we couldn’t make the distance work. Saying our parents would never let us. You all-”

Gave up.

“-said it wouldn’t work.”

Darius winces. He rubs at his face like he’ll be able to wipe the exhaustion away. “We did,” he says. “I’m still not sure it will. But it’s like you said. We can’t assume the worst when it hasn’t even happened. It’s not fair.”

Brooklyn wants to laugh, she’s just not sure if it’s out of wonder or despair. The other’s listened to her, and every argument she dragged up to get them to stop being so damn pessimistic. It’s just now the roles have switched, and she’s the one suddenly afraid nothing will work. She’s the one throwing plans into the winds in the hopes that one will catch on. One of them will work. Please, please, let something work.

“The worst has already happened.” Brooklyn says, because it has. Getting left on Isla Nublar is the worst thing, and it will remain top of the list until something can beat it. Brooklyn knows exactly what that something could be, but she won’t even dare think it for fears of somehow conjuring it into existence. So Jurassic World abandonment it is. But being separated from the others would be a very close second.

“Okay,” Sammy says. “So then if we can handle the worst, then we can handle this.”

It’s so simple. Or rather, it sounds simple. But Brooklyn has done many things in her life that sounded simple and then never were. It’s an illusion that lulls you into a false sense of security. She refuses to be caught off guard ever again.

“Sure,” she says. Maybe if she just acts like it’s simple, then it will be.

It won’t be. Brooklyn knows her dads. She knows how overprotective they are for the things that feel like they shouldn’t matter. They don’t mean it, Brooklyn thinks. It’s not like she’s Rapunzel in a tower. They just ask so many questions and insinuate so many things and in the end it’s just easier to not have anything for them to do that too.

But Brooklyn hadn’t been lying yesterday when she’d said there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do to keep her new family together. She will run away from her parents. She’ll drain her savings. She’ll turn her back on the career she spent years cultivating. She’ll give up literally everything, as long as it means she’s with them.

They’re the only things she won’t make any concessions for.

“Hey, Brooklyn,” Sammy’s voice is gentle and quiet, but it still breaks through to Brooklyn. “It’s okay to be scared.”

“I’m not scared,” Brooklyn says instantly. It’s a lie. There’s a fear in her chest that took up residency the moment the Indominus Rex burst out of the tree line, and it hasn’t left since. All it’s done is change and grow and develop into something new. Still terror, but of a different variety.

“I’m terrified,” Sammy says, as if Brooklyn hadn’t actually spoken. Maybe lies don’t count as talking. “To leave all you guys. I know we’re all afraid that things will be different, and I’m tryin’ to be real brave about it, but it is scary. And I think if we pretend it isn’t, then it’ll just get even more scary.”

Sammy doesn’t mean it, but she reminds Brooklyn of a therapist she saw once (big emphasis on once) after her dads thought it would be a good way to cope through some of the mean comments she was getting. Brooklyn had been young- barely eleven- and the therapist had talked to her in short, simple statements like she thought Brooklyn was barely eight. Brooklyn had begged her dads not to make her go back there, and in the end they had relented. Brooklyn barely remembers the session now. It’s just that the way Sammy’s speaking makes her think of it.

Sammy’s not trying to be patronising though. That’s just the way she talks. It’s a part of her, and she’s a part of Brooklyn. So Brooklyn doesn’t even know why her brain is doing this- walking her down a weird path towards a moment she hasn’t thought about in years.

It’s because you’re avoiding the topic, a voice in her head that is just her says. Because it’s actually just Brooklyn talking to Brooklyn, she knows it’s right. She does want to breeze over it so maybe it won’t hurt as much, but her investigative brain keeps lingering. She craves answers like you crave food.

But there’s no clear answers here. No certainties to fall back on. They’re heading into the unknown and that’s terrifying. Brooklyn thinks she’d rather walk back into the genetics lab to find a third Scorpius Rex.

That’s why it feels like they’re going in circles. Because they are. They’re snagged in a kelp forest again and the propellor of the boat is turning but they’re not moving anyway. They’re stagnant- stuck. And when they finally break free, they’ll be alone. It won’t be on a boat in the middle of the ocean, but Brooklyn knows it’ll feel like she is. A vast expanse of absolute nothing, with just her in the middle. If the boat sinks and she goes under, no one will even notice.

She can feel everyone’s eyes on her. They’re waiting for her to respond to Sammy. She doesn’t know what they want from her.

“I don’t wanna talk about it anymore,” she says. “I’m tired.”

“But-”

“I’m gonna get some rest,” she cuts Darius off before he can trap her in with another speech. Didn’t he hear her? She’s tired. Every bone in her body hurts. Every muscle aches. “Wake me up if they bring our test results.”

“Brooklyn, please.”

She closes her eyes, and pretends like the loss of that sense causes all the others to break down as well. She seals herself off in a bubble- on a boat in the ocean- and imagines the world has fallen away around her. She needs these five people, she does. Always and forever.

But she can’t keep them. No matter how hard she’s tried to convince them- and herself- that they can make this work, she knows it’s all in vain. She doesn’t want to be back on the island, of course. But Brooklyn wishes they were somewhere like that. A space for just them, where the only thing they had to focus on was staying strong for each other. It’s a stupid wish and it’s just going to get her hopes up and that’s why she has to do this now. She has to seal herself away so it'll feel like she’s ending things on her terms. It’s going to be over soon, after all. It might even be mere minutes away.

Brooklyn doesn’t believe in things like, sensing other people and being emotionally attached via empathy links or something. She’s done a heap of Brooklyn Unboxes videos on things like that, and there’s never been any science she can point to for definitive proof. She believes in forming bonds that feel stronger than normal- because that’s what she has with her friends- but that’s about it. There’s no cosmic magic, not spiritual sensations.

And yet there’s a part of Brooklyn that doesn’t need any nurse or doctor to tell her the truth. She already knows it, like someone’s flicked a switch inside her that alights all of her senses. Nobody’s said anything, but she feels it all the same.

Somewhere downstairs in the group of parents who have arrived are her dads.

Chapter 8: As the souls of the dead fill the space of my mind

Chapter Text

Once, when Darius was very young, he got lost at a Christmas pageant. He maintains to this day that it wasn’t really his fault. His family had been there with some cousins, or some friends- he can’t quite remember which. The point is, a child younger than Darius had ran off down the street and the adults and kids had scrambled to try and find him. Brand had taken off in the direction he claimed the kid had run, and so Darius had given chase, thinking he could help as well. He’d ducked and weaved his way through the crowds of people eagerly waiting for the first float to come trundling down- always keeping his eyes on Brand’s back. Or rather, on what he’d thought was Brand’s back. But then the person had turned, and it wasn’t Brand at all, and when Darius tried to retrace his steps back to where he thought their little group was huddled, he couldn’t. Nobody looked familiar, and he screamed for his parents and for Brand, but nobody came. The only thing Darius could think to do was curl up into a ball, close his eyes, and wait for something to happen.

When you’re young, time works in a funny way. One minute can stretch for an eternity, and an hour can feel as quick as thirty seconds. It’s probably because you’re too young to actually know what periods of time feel like. Regardless, it felt to Darius back then that he stayed curled up on the ground for hours. Feet jostled him as people walked past trying to get better spots. Nobody noticed he was down there, at risk of being trampled.

And then strong arms wrapped around his and Darius was hoisted out of the crowd into the air. The sudden light blinded him but he blinked through it and saw the person holding him was his dad. He’d come for Darius, even though Darius was small and hard to see and should never have run off in the first place.

“Gave me quite a scare,” his dad said, hiking Darius up to sit on his shoulders. “What were you doing?”

Darius can’t remember what he said next, but he thinks he might have burst into tears. Partly from relief at being found, and partly from fear that he’d ben in trouble for getting lost. What he can remember is the way the world looked from up on his dad’s shoulders- high above the crowd that had threatened to pull him under. He can still see the beginnings of snow on the trees that lined the road, and hear the sound of music as far away- the pageant finally started. He can feel his dad’s hands keeping him secure as he perched up there. He’s never felt safer in his life than then.

And then he lost it.

The nurse tells them there are parents downstairs, and Darius remembers the last time he was ever in a hospital. He wasn’t in a room like he is now- receiving treatment for a myriad of injuries that are honestly long healed by now. No, back then he wasn’t up here. He wasn’t safe above the crowds of people that had almost drowned him. He was down there- trapped at the bottom- waiting desperately for news that the person he loved was going to be okay.

Darius Bowman never got that news.

Darius Bowman got a sombre faced doctor saying she was sorry. He got whispered reassurances that it hadn’t been painful in the end. He got a tight hug from his brother. He got barely restrained tears from his mother. And he got an envelope with a necklace in it that he didn’t even need because he already had the matching one around his neck.

He’s been doing pretty well about the whole ‘being on hospital’ thing, all things considered. He was just old enough when his dad died to understand there wasn’t anything anyone could do to fix it. The hospital hadn’t taken his dad from him. It had done its best to help, but in the end their best just couldn’t match was the disease was doing. Darius raged at the world for how unfair it was, but it was the kind of raging that gets you nowhere. Like screaming at a Tyrannosaurus Rex. You’re screaming at something that can’t even comprehend what you are. You’re too small for that.

Darius kind of wants to scream now. Downstairs someone might be waiting for him, but it will never be his dad. Never again will he be hoisted into the air and held safely. He’s had his time to mourn this, but now it feels like there’s a reversal of positions and it doesn’t make sense that it’s not an exact comparison. His dad should be waiting downstairs for him- matching necklace and all.

Around him, the others speak- frantic and afraid words that almost sound like the beginning of an argument. It sort of sounds like it’s in slow motion though, even as Darius tries to join in. They tread through the same worries that have been haunting Darius this entire time, never making any ground. They may as well be back in the Jurassic World Lagoon trying to paddle away from the rapidly gaining Mosasaurus but barely being able to make a dent in the distance to the edge. Fight it all you like, but there’s a huge threat coming and you don’t have the power to stop it.

Yes, they got out of the lagoon alive. But they didn’t really stop anything, did they? They just delayed the inevitable. Soon enough, another dinosaur came. Soon enough, they were running for their lives again.

Darius blinks, and it’s like time speeds up. Brooklyn is pretending to sleep. Darius wants to talk to her- try to formulate a plan like they used to do all the time on the island- but she’s made it clear she’s done talking for now. She tries to be so strong for them, so Darius can’t fault her for this. It’s just…she picked him up from where he’d fallen yesterday. He’d like to try and do the same for her now.

He’s adrift ever since they got off the boat and onto the mainland- which feels a little ironic. Has Darius only ever known how to be a leader in a situation that applies to his interests? He knows dinosaurs, so it’s natural that he leads them through a dinosaur island. But now they’re in a hospital, he feels like he’s lost all control. Not that he wants to be a control freak who orders them all around. He just worries they all still expect it of him and he’s failing to live up to that.

“Darius?” it’s Sammy who cuts through the fog that clouds his mind. “What should we do?”

She sounds like she hates to ask it, but it has to be asked. They’re in yet another new situation and they can’t fight their way out of it, or run away from it, so they just have to keep talking.

Darius glances around at them all. Brooklyn- eyes closed as she pretends to sleep. Kenji still looking pale and unnerved. Yaz is blank faced but tense. Ben hunches over like he’s waiting to attack something. Sammy watches Darius back anxiously, waiting for a response to her question.

“Is there any paper in the bedside tables?” he asks. “And pens?”

“Are you going to write a strongly worded letter to someone?” Ben asks dryly. “Dear InGen. You suck.”

“I’ll save that for an email,” Darius says. He watches as Kenji uses one of his long arms to fish around in the little cabinet where he’d found the cards yesterday, all the while managing to stay balanced on the bed. He pulls out a notepad with the logo of the hospital stencilled at the top, and a pen that Darius would bet good money is also branded. That’s private hospitals for you. “Can you toss it over, Kenji?”

Kenji sizes up the gap between their beds- they’re both on the end of opposite rows, so they have a bigger gap than there would be if they were next to each other. Still, the room is crowded with all of them in their so after a couple of arm swings to practice, Kenji throws over the notepad, and then the pen. They land on the end of Darius’ bed, and he has to awkwardly shuffle down to grab them, careful of his IV line. He flops back against the pillows with a sigh of relief.

“Okay,” he says. “I’m gonna write down my phone number, email address, and my social media handles. And my home address as well. I’m gonna write it down five times and each give you one. And then we’re all gonna do the same with our own stuff. I know we talked about doing it, and Sammy actually did before things got crazy and she probably lost it-”

“I did.”

“-but it’s much better if we each have a copy for ourselves. Every single way possible to keep in touch.”

“Darius,” Yaz starts to say.

“I know it’s not a plan,” Darius cuts her off as gently as he can. “Not really. But it’s something. It’s something we can do right now. And it’ll help. I know it will.”

He’s saying this for all of them, but he keeps his eyes on Brooklyn the most as he says this. She doesn’t open her eyes or sit back up, but he thinks he can see her relax slightly.

He wants them to be able to move past this. Obviously, it matters. They’re a family now, and it sucks so much that no outsider is truly going to believe that. He just wants to hold them all close and go live somewhere together- just as wild and free as they had been but with better amenities and less dinosaurs. Bumpy is the obvious exception. It’s a dream, though. An illusion of a reality that is realistically four plus years in the future, if it’s even in their futures at all. Their life now is back on the mainland, in their separate homes in their different states. The longer they spend dreading this, the more stuck they’ll get. Darius can see this now. The only way out is forward, and that means action. It means making a game plan and having faith in it to work. No more dreading the worst. Instead, Darius wants to hope for the best.

Having hope is so hard. Darius had held onto it for so long when his dad had first gotten sick. He’d grasped it tight and refused to let go to the point that it was delusional. It was crushing to realise his hope was futile at the time, but he knows different now. He had hope on the island, after all. And he also had action. You can mix both for a favourable outcome.

“Once we’ve done this,” he says, starting to write. “We move on. Tackle another problem. Just like we did at camp. We’ve talked about it as much as we can. We just gotta believe we can make it work. That’s half the battle.”

He waits for any objections. Darius knows he’s asking a lot for them to just put aside their greatest fear. It doesn’t sit right with him either. There’s still a part of him that wants to discuss even more plans they could make. But he’s seen this kind of desperate burn out before. It was scribbled over their chalkboards at camp as they tried and failed to make escape attempt after escape attempt work. Nothing good came out the plans they made when they were stuck.

“Sounds good,” Kenji says. “I think there were some more pens. Can everyone else check the other cabinets? Then we can all get a piece of paper and write at once and pass the sheets around. Get a real collab vibe going.”

Darius internally breathes a sigh of relief. It’s not really for him- it’s for them. He wants them to have a peaceful moment. It seems like they haven’t been able to manage such a simple thing yet.

The other cabinet is between Brooklyn and Ben’s beds, so Ben awkwardly flails around until he can snag open the drawer and find a couple more pens. Kenji unearths two more as well, so they have five pens. It’s not enough for the six of them, except Brooklyn is still pretending to be asleep- or maybe she actually is now. Heaven knows they all need more sleep than they’re getting. They’ll have to leave spaces for her to add her details once she gets back up.

It's…nice, passing the paper around and chatting quietly as they remark over funny email addresses, and compare social media sites they have accounts on. Darius embraces the little things that remind him so much of their downtime on the island, when they simply got to exist as friends hanging out. Yaz draws little pictures next to everything she writes- something different for each person. Kenji asks Ben what a Tumblr is, and Sammy hesitates for a long while before finally writing down her ranch’s address. The amount of fluid left in the IV bags starts to lessen and lessen, a clear sign of the passage of time that Darius chooses to ignore in favour of just doing exactly what Brooklyn had said yesterday.

He lives in the moment.

Time is not in their favour. At this very minute, the results of their blood tests are being processed. The chances of the teens even getting told those results are up in the air now, because of the arrival of some of their parents. With their guardians now here, there’s no way they’ll be the first to hear about their conditions. Darius doesn’t want to think about how the next knock on their door may be a doctor coming to discharge them, and so he doesn’t.

Instead, Darius focuses on the way Sammy and Yaz discuss which app is more romantic to message on, and if they should do the Facebook couple thing or if that’s too old school. He laughs as Ben he tries to explain to Kenji that actually, it’s totally normal to talk to people through a Google Doc. He tenses up with everyone else as footsteps draw close to their room, and relaxes when it’s just an orderly bringing them more sandwiches and juice to snack on. He pretends this is actually just a camp- the normal kind that they should have been on.

He finds out things that they never really got around to asking on the island- because there were obvious priorities. Sammy learnt how to ride a horse before she could walk, and Yaz only started doing track stuff because she saw The Incredibles and thought the scene at the end with Dash looked really cool to try. Ben knows how to make his own hand sanitiser because a science teacher he had saw how freaked out he got when there wasn’t any around and went out of her way to teach him, and Kenji was just starting to have boat lessons right before he jettisoned off for camp but still didn’t consider himself good enough to brag about it. Darius tells them how he got into dinosaurs in the first place- an old family rumour about an alleged lizard attack at a beach- which sparks a brief discussion about what would be their scariest animal encounter if you didn’t count all their ones at Jurassic World.

(For the record, Yaz’s encounter with a black bear while running some cross country tracks on an out of state meetup is the scariest.)

All the while, Brooklyn’s eyes stay closed, and her breathing remains steady. Darius hopes she is just catching up on sleep, because it hurts to consider the alternative- that she’s ignoring them because she’s upset. Darius wants to wake her up and tell her he’s sorry for forcing her into staying positive even though she was clearly hurting too. He wants to ask her what’s really wrong, and have her tell him.

He doesn’t want things to end like this.

There’s a melancholy feel in the air that can’t be ignored, even as they laugh and chat and try to act like normal kids. It’s been lingering ever since they got on the boat, and it’s only strengthened now. Darius knows he hates change more than the average person. Losing his dad had been the biggest change of his life and it had been entirely out of control. He knows this situation is much the same, but it’s also a little different. He does have some control here. He’s just not allowed to use it. He’s never cursed his age like he does now. He wants to be older, wiser. Stronger and braver. Someone who can keep being a leader even off the island.

“What’s your preferred video call site?” Sammy asks, effectively snapping Darius out of his thoughts before they can keep circling down the drain. “Skype?”

“Skype’s old news,” Kenji says. “Have you guys heard of Discord?”

“Isn’t that a word for arguing?” Ben frowns. Darius is fifty percent sure Ben is playing dumb to wind Kenji up.

“No,” Kenji says defensively. “It’s a super cool new messaging thingy.”

“Messaging…thingy…” Yaz levels him with a look.

“You know what I mean,” says Kenji. “Point is, it’s cool, and it’s heaps better than Skype. You guys should all join up and we can chat on there. Start our own server.”

“What makes it better than Skype?” Sammy wants to know. There’s a twinkle in her eyes that makes Darius think they’re all being a bit purposely obtuse to annoy Kenji. It’s drawing Kenji out of the weird shell he’s been in though, so Darius can’t complain. He’s well aware that for all the leadership skills he apparently possessed, he’s not so good with understanding people.

“Okay,” Kenji says, jabbing his pen against his sheet of paper like he’s about to start a school lesson. “Where do I even begin?”

“With the end?” Yaz suggests, raising an eyebrow. “Short, sharp and simple?”

“Nuh uh,” Kenji says. “You guys are getting a Kenji Kon approved lecture.”

“I’d rather get eaten by the blue raptor.”

“Liar.”

Darius watches the back and forth with a fond smile he can’t quite hide, not that he’d want to. It’s good that they all know how much they mean to each other. That means there’s no room for doubting their places here. Or at least, he hopes that. He knows they’ve all struggled with feeling like they belong at certain times. Kenji has always been desperate to make himself valuable by the things he owned, afraid that the person he is isn’t enough. Ben has struggled with fitting in after being away from them for so long. Yaz and her anti-social tendencies have been an attempt to distance herself before they can do it to her, like she was afraid they would. Sammy still fears the affect her lying and betrayal had on them. Brooklyn finds it difficult to act like a normal kid after a childhood of being anything but. And Darius…

Well Darius still worries they only kept him around for his dinosaur knowledge. It’s a small worry, and a stupid one. It feels mean as well, like a betrayal of his own. They love him, and sometimes he thinks it’s a lie.

“Oh!” Kenji crows loud enough that it brings Darius’ attention back to the conversation. “We have to come up with a super cool group name for our chat!”

Sammy scrunches up her face. “What’s wrong with Camp Fam?”

“Nothing,” Kenji says quickly. “It’s perfect. No notes. But I think we should totally have like, a subheading or something. Camp Fam: I survived Jurassic World and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.”

“What t-shirt?” Ben asks. “We didn’t take any of the merch from the shops, remember? You said it was lame.”

“It’s an expression, Benjamin.”

“Ew, don’t use my full name.”

“Yasmina. Samantha.”

“Um, you know my name isn’t short for that. It’s not short for anything. It’s just Sammy.”

Kenji gasps. “Betrayal! Lies and slander!”

Darius looks down at the paper he’s holding, drifting away from the bickering that feels just a little forced. Right now it has Sammy, Yaz, Ben, and Kenji’s contact details on it. It’s just missing Brooklyn’s. It’s a small consolation prize but he values it more than any apparently incoming lawsuit, or even the prospect of seeing his family again. This is the proof he needs that he’s loved, and that it isn’t a lie. It’s proof that there’s a future for him.

He just hopes he can be present for it.

The pit in his stomach that threatened to swallow him up is still there. He’s no longer being sucked into it, but he can still feel the way it threatens to. It’s like someone grabbed his entire body and pulled it violently to the side, but it left behind a part of him on the way. Like…what do you call it…phantom pain. Someone’s cut a limb off of him and it still hurts even though it’s not there. These people are the parts of him that makes him whole. When they’re pulled apart, he’ll feel that pain forever. Yaz- his legs, and Sammy is his heart. Ben is his hands, and Kenji is his chest. Brooklyn is his head. Darius doesn’t exist as his own person anymore. He’s an amalgamation of the best and worst parts of the Camp Fam.

Darius will have to try and recover from everything Isla Nublar put him through, and he’ll have to do it alone. No amount of faking it can change that. All you can do is…

Is try to make the best of it.

He knows they’re all faking it right now. None of them really feel like joking around and having silly arguments about group chat names. It’s a bandage they’re plastering over a gaping wound to try and stem the bleeding. I get it, Darius wants to say to Brooklyn. I understand now. Sometimes you have to lie. Sometimes if you tell yourself something enough, it gets a little easier.

Sometimes-

Knock.

Knock knock.

Knockknockknockknockknock-

Darius’ heart starts to beat in frantic rhythm with the thumping on the door. His fingers curl around the paper he’s holding and start to crease its edges. He opens his mouth to speak but can’t bring himself to actually saying anything.

The door opens. Jennifer is standing there, holding a file in her hands. Darius’ eyes narrow in on it, trying to see if there’s any writing or something he can use to identify it. There’s nothing. Just blankness.

“How are you all feeling?” she asks. It feels to Darius like she’s stalling. “Have you eaten?”

“We had sandwiches,” Sammy says. Her voice is tight. “And juice.”

“Good, good.” Jennifer steps into the room. Darius tenses as she drifts from bed to bed, checking the ever-lessening levels of their IVs. They act as a timer- drops of liquid counting down an end point. “You’ll be able to have these out soon.”

“How soon is soon?” Ben asks. His eyes are as sharp as shards of glass, eager to cut. If Darius is tense, then Ben is ten times that.

“When they’re done,” Jennifer says simply. “Which is soon.” She stops by Brooklyn’s bed and frowns. “Is she alright?”

Darius finds his voice, raspy though it is. “She’s sleeping.”

“Hm,” Jennifer’s voice gives nothing away, at least not to Darius. Perhaps if she was a Gallimimus or something, he would understand her better. “Probably for the best. You should all be getting some rest.”

“We’re sitting down,” Yaz says curtly. “That’s resting.”

Yaz’s idea of resting is usually doing more work, but Jennifer can’t know this. She doesn’t know anything about them except surface level stuff, like their blood types, and if they’re dying of tropical diseases or not- because that’s what’s in the file, right? She has their results.

Wake me up, Brooklyn had asked. Darius can’t move.

“I suppose,” Jennifer says. “There’ll be plenty of more time to sleep when-”

“Gah,” Kenji exhales loudly and thumps a fist down against the mattress. “Can you just tell us why you’re here already?”

Jennifer blinks, but it’s the only visible sign that she’s lost any of her composure. She considers Kenji with a look that Darius can’t decipher, but he knows he doesn’t like. “Of course,” she says, voice as smooth as ever. “I have the results of your tests here.”

Darius almost flinches, but he holds it back. Really, there’s no need to fear the worst. If any of them had some kind of infectious disease, he doesn’t think Jennifer would be coming in here so calmly to deliver the news. Which means…

“Despite your time on Isla Nublar in what I can only describe as subpar conditions, none of you have contracted any sort of diseases that could put you or anyone else at risk,” Jennifer says. She pauses like she’s waiting for them to cheer.

Nobody says anything.

“None of your injuries are infected either. They’re healing slower than is normal, but that’s to be expected given your conditions. Proper care will be needed, but nothing major.”

Another pause. Another stretch of silence.

“Ms Gutierrez,” here, Jennifer has to consult the file. “Your blood work is clear of any-uh-dinosaur toxin that may have once been there.”

This time there’s a reaction. Yaz’s shoulders slump and she presses a hand to her forehead. Sammy looks over at her with a smile that seems to say see, I’m okay. Both appear to have had a weight lifted off their shoulders.

“Of course, you’re all badly malnourished and lacking a lot of vitamins and minerals your bodies need. The doctors you’ll need to see when you return home will handle balancing out everything. They’ll also have to handle things like Ms Fadoula’s ankle, and Mr Pincus’ tests for ca-”

Ben hisses, cutting her off before she can keep talking. “You don’t have to announce everything to all of us.”

This time the silence comes from Jennifer. She sizes Ben up like she had done with Kenji. Darius wishes he could read her mind so he knows what she’s thinking when she looks at them. Does she have theories about what they’re like? Are she and all the other doctors gossiping about their opinions on them?

He also wishes he could know what Ben had cut her off on. Boundaries had stopped existing between the six of them a long time ago. Any secrets they keep are ones that run deep, and that’s terrifying to think about.

“I will give copies of the files we have assembled to your parents,” Jennifer says finally. “Who are all here now, and eager to take you home.”

…

…

…

Boom.

She may as well have dropped a bomb. Darius feels like he’s been levelled- blasted flat out against the ground as the radius of the explosion Jennifer has caused rippled out. He almost reaches a hand up to feel his face for any burns. He is stunned- silent.

Destroyed.

This isn’t new information. They knew some of their parents had arrived. They knew the rest would be on their way. This shouldn’t be the kind of news that feels like Darius has just taken his foot off a land mine.

But the way she said it…

Eager to take you home.

This is it. This is really it. They’re about to be split up.

His eyes dart around the room to stare at the others. They all look as stunned as Darius feels, if not more. Wide eyes and open mouths. Kenji especially looks like he just got run over by a stampeding herd of Sauropods. Brooklyn still has her eyes closed- which proves she’s definitely sleeping- but it just makes her look like she’s dead, and suddenly Darius’ heart is thumping into overdrive and his vision warps and the hospital melts away and he’s seeing Brooklyn lying at the feet of the Scorpius Rex. He blinks and it’s Sammy. Then it’s Ben. And Yaz. And Kenji. All dead. All gone. He’s alone. He’s been left alone.

He blinks, and everything’s white again. Everyone’s alive. He’s in the hospital. He’s not alone- not yet. But he blinks and they’re back on the island. A blink and it’s the hospital. It’s dizzying, maddening. Every shift in his reality has him facing an awful nightmare that maybe none of this is real. Maybe’s he’s hallucinating on Scorpius Rex venom and he’s about to die- about to join the others in whatever comes next.

Darius presses the palms of his hands so hard into his eyes he fears he might pop them. Swirls of colour dance behind his eyelids. He refuses to see any shapes in them.

Not dead, he chants in his mind. He won’t accept this reality- it’s not real. They’re in the hospital. They all made it out. They’re about to be separated but they’re not dead. Not dead. Not dead not dead not dead not dead not dead not dead not dead not dead not dead not dead not dead not dead not dead-

Not dead.

He peels open his eyes cautiously. There’s no green jungle, or spiny dinosaur. Nobody is lying dead in front of him. Jennifer is there. He blinks.

Nothing changes.

Nobody’s moved. Everyone- except Brooklyn- is still staring at Jennifer. No time has passed. Darius has spiralled and then brought it back together in a matter of seconds.

“Do we…” Sammy finds her voice before anyone else can. It feels weird for this silence to be shattered, even if it is by Sammy. “Do we have to go now?”

The pit in Darius’ stomach pulls at him eagerly.

“You can’t leave yet,” Jennifer says. “Not until your IVs are done. But after that, your parents will discharge you and take you home to continue your medical treatment in a better environment.”

Darius stares at the bag hanging over his bed. He and Brooklyn had theirs put in first. His is so close to being done- and it’ll be done before anyone else. Everything’s about to end.

Everything’s about to end.

He clutches his paper tightly. It’s his lifeline right now. It’ll pull him out of the ocean. It’ll drag him up and away from danger below.

“Your parents want to see you, of course,” Jennifer says. “But I told them with the room being this crowded, it’s best to wait.”

Darius shouldn’t feel relieved by that, but he is.

“I’m going to talk to your parents now,” Jennifer says. “There’s a lot to discuss. Sit tight. It won’t be too much longer until you’re all able to go home.”

She adjusts the file held against her chest, and gives them all one last surveying look. Can she see the shock and horror in their eyes? If she can, she says nothing about it. They get a short nod, and then the door is closed and she is gone.

Silence.

Chilling silence.

Nobody knows what to say. They’re currently entering a reality they’ve frantically been preparing for, but all the plans they’ve made and all the talking they’ve done hasn’t helped them at all. There’s a truck parked on Darius’ chest that’s affecting his breathing, and a pit in his stomach that wants to eat him whole. He’s drowning on dry land. He’s suffocating in a room full of air.

He’s dying in a hospital.

Above him, the final drop of his IV drains away.

Chapter 9: As I live all the years that they left me behind

Chapter Text

A needle eased out of a hand with expert ease.

An adjustment of a stray bandage slipping down slightly.

The removal of tightly fitted sheets from a rumpled mattress.

In the space of barely one day, a room designed for four and re-configured for six is put back in place. It will remain empty for maybe a few hours, before a new patient finds their way to it. Until then, it is as if nobody was ever in there at all.

Further down the hall, and office computer is being dealt with. A collection of files is saved and then closed. Once important, they are now obsolete. The people they concern are moving on. They will not be needed again, unless something truly bizarre- and unlikely- happens and these patients end up back in the private Costa Rica hospital.

Downstairs, nurses and orderlies are ordered to put their phones away in preparation for a truly touching (and sensationalised) reunion. A waiting room for friends and family is cleared of the few people that were in there- all moved to another place to sit- and then filled once again with a different crowd of people who are still friends and family, and who are still waiting.

There’s an elevator slowly descending between one floor and the next- affording its occupants a few seconds to discuss what’s about to happen. They don’t take these seconds. The six of them are silent as they drop. There’s nothing left to be said.

When the door open, this will be it.

This all started over a year ago on an island that probably never should have been populated, with six kids who probably never would have met without it. If everything had gone smoothly, they surely would have all gone home and maybe stayed in touch for a few weeks, before eventually their communicating dropped off. Instead, they’ve come out on the other side of absolute hell with a far stronger bond than most outsiders would consider normal.

Yasmina Fadoula. Sammy Gutierrez. Brooklyn TM. Darius Bowman. Kenji Kon. Benjamin Pincus. Put them together and you get the Nublar Six.

Or you get the Camp Fam.

Yaz and Sammy hold hands. Nothing short of a rampaging dinosaur can separate them- or parents who live in different states. After a moment, Sammy extends her free hand to Brooklyn. Brooklyn stares at it. Then, she takes it. She holds her other hand out for Darius to take. He doesn’t need even a second to consider it- he’s already interlacing their fingers together even as he extends an arm out to Kenji. Kenji grabs at it like it’s a lifeline, then tentatively offers one of his own to Ben. Ben hesitates, and then accepts. The six of them are linked in the cramped elevator as it trundles them with an agonizing lack of pace to the room where they’ll be broken apart.

There are words that could be said- tearful goodbyes that they haven’t gotten to yet because they couldn’t bear it. Instead, they just arm themselves with six simple sheets of paper. It would be an ineffective weapon against anything else, but not against this.

It's a miracle they’re still together at the moment. Darius and Brooklyn’s IV drips had drained themselves dry well before any of the others, and it seemed like they would be pulled away first. Darius especially had been certain that he was going to be forced to leave. But nobody had come round to fetch them, and bit by bit they’d relaxed- as much as they could considering their separation was frighteningly close. Really, it ended up just being a delaying of the inevitable. Nobody had spoken much, not after they’d filled Brooklyn in on everything she’d missed. She’d added all her contact details and social handles (of which there were many) but that was about it. They’d just spent what little time they’d had left waiting. They’d been given many false alarms over the course of the day, but when Jennifer finally came, it was clear there was none left to hand out. This was it. One last elevator trip and then…

Time slows down in that childlike way where you can’t comprehend how long anything lasts. They could spend the rest of their days on this elevator just being together, and then the doors will open and they’ll stumble out the same age- like they’ve been in Narnia or something. It’s a pretty boring place to spend an eternity, but maybe boring isn’t all that bad when you’ve just spent a year surviving a near death experience a day.

The elevator settles into place and the doors protest as they squeak their way open. They should stop holding hands in this split second before they’re on public display again, but none of them can bring themselves to do that. Until they’re absolutely forced to, they’re clinging to each other. This is their way of saying goodbye.

It’s bit of a shock when the doors finally finish groaning into place and there’s no flood of noise, or pitter patter of approaching footsteps. There’re no flashing lights from cameras that Brooklyn has been expecting, or an over eager parent making an early break for it like Ben thinks would have happened. In fact, the only person waiting for them is Jennifer, looking perfectly put together like they’ve come to expect.

“Um…” Sammy takes a tentative step forward which forces everyone else to do the same since they’re all linked. “Are our parents…not here?”

“They’re here,” Jennifer says. None of the six will miss the way she casts her ever-curious eyes over them. Even when they’re not her patients anymore, she’s still scanning them for cracks in an armour they put on too long ago to properly take off. “We’ve put them in a room so you can have some privacy. Our hospital has strict policies but a loose camera or two will always slip through the cracks.”

Ben swallows. “Are we really that big a deal?”

“Oh yeah,” Brooklyn says- and she speaks with an authority that three years of intense internet fame gives you. “We’re huge.”

Yaz in particular looks displeased at this, but it’s a look mirrored by everyone else. There’s nothing glamorous about their survival. It’s just ugly.

“This way,” Jennifer says. She leads them down a short stretch of corridor to a room that’s labelled ‘waiting room 1’. There are no windows into the room, and the door that opens into it is shut. No sound comes from the other side of the walls. If not for Jennifer stopping them here, it would be hard to believe anyone is inside.

Jennifer stretches out slender fingers for the door knob, but Kenji suddenly wobbles. He presses his hand against the wall for support. Sammy gets on the other side of him just in case he starts to topple in the other direction.

“Can you wait just a second?” he pleads. His hand presses against the wall with such strength that a twisted scar stands out sharply against his skin. “Please.”

Jennifer’s composure doesn’t shift- like always- but she does retract her hand from the door. “A second,” she concedes, even though it’s already been longer than that.

The others crowd around Kenji like they’re forming a shield. It reminds both Ben and Darius of the way the adult Ankylosaurus had protected Bumpy. The only difference is they’re not standing up against a spiky poisonous dinosaur. From what they can tell, Mr Kon is a far more dangerous breed than that.

“I will bite him,” Ben says, letting Kenji know any and all allusions to him doing so hadn’t been a joke.

“Don’t bite my dad,” Kenji says weakly. He doesn’t sound like he means it.

Ben huffs out a breath. “It’s what he deserves.”

Kenji’s dad is a topic that has been carefully danced around since the very first day on the island- back when they were just kids on a camp. Kenji often brings him up thoughtlessly and with a lack of care that indicates he doesn’t think what he’s talking about his dad doing to him is wrong. It’s only when the others start to look concerned that he frantically backtracks. Darius had tried to push the issue once and Kenji had snapped at him so harshly that it sent a pretty strong message. After that, they allowed Kenji to keep making his excuses, even if didn’t sit well with them. They’re paying the price for that now.

“It’ll be fine, seriously,” Kenji says. It’s a reassurance that none of the others can handle. It probably isn’t even working on him. “We’ll go home and everything will be like it used to.”

“Kenji, you know that’s not a good thing,” Sammy says gently. “You need support and love right now. We all do. And he…”

Mr Kon has never given Kenji any of those things. But it’s one thing for them to all know it, and it’s another thing to actually say it. It hurts to admit painful truths like that, and it hurts even more to say it to someone who’s lived it their whole life. They don’t need another reminder.

“I’m okay,” Kenji lies. “No point in delaying the inevitable. Let’s just go in.”

It’s what they’re all doing, after all. Delaying an inevitability that they arguably should be pushing each other aside for. In the room they’re hovering outside is a representation of everything they’d worked so hard to get back home for. From the way they draw back and shuffle around uncomfortably, you’d think they’d be opening the door on a pack of rapid Compys. Even Sammy hesitates.

How do you finally rejoin with something you’ve been fighting so hard for? It’s a finishing line that not even Yaz is familiar with.

Jennifer clicks her tongue, apparently frustrated with the holdup enough to show some cracks in the façade. “We can’t stand in this hallway all day,” she says. Ben sizes her up, like he’s considering doing just that to prove a point, but Darius steps forward.

This may be the last thing he ever does as the leader for this ragtag band of survivors. The final call, so to speak.

“We’re ready,” he says- and it’s a lie but they’ll all pretend it’s not because Jennifer is right. They can’t keep standing out here. This is the end of one thing, and it’s the start of something else entirely new. They can’t put it off any longer.

It’s Darius who stretches out a hand to the doorknob. He pauses to see if Jennifer will stop him, but she just stands back and lets him turn it. There’s a small click as he turns the handle to its full rotation, and the corridor is so quiet that it may as well be a gun going off, or a sky gondola exploding. Darius pushes on the door with all his weight, and steps into the room.

Once, when Darius was very young, he got lost at a Christmas pageant…nobody noticed he was down there, at risk of being trampled…and then strong arms wrapped around his…he’s never felt safer in his life than-

Strong arms wrap around Darius with such ferocity that he nearly falls over. His legs give out under the full force of the weight crashing into him but it doesn’t even matter, because before he can even cry out he is lifted into the air and pulled into a crushing hug that leaves him halfway off the ground, feet dangling. Darius can’t see anything because his face is currently pressed into someone’s chest, but he knows who’s holding him. He’d know this hug anywhere.

“Hey, Brand,” he says into Brandon Bowman’s chest, voice muffled.

“You idiot,” it sounds like Brand is crying. “Don’t ever do that again, you hear me? Don’t do that.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” Darius protests weakly, but now his voice is starting to tremble, and the tears are starting to fall. He finally gets his own hands to start working and he wraps them around Brand so they’re holding each other.

The two brothers sink to the ground, neither letting go of the other. There they crouch, half blocking the doorway as they hold on like this is the last hug they’ll ever have. Darius had worried and fretted and delayed this reunion for as long as he could, and now he wonders how he could have ever done that? This is the person he fought to get home to the most on the island. On dark days where he thought about maybe just giving up on that last dash for safety, he'd think about Brand. How would he feel if he found out Darius didn’t give it his all? Brand may never know it, but every dodge that kept Darius an inch out of harm’s way, and every frantic leap into a slightly safer spot could have been afforded less effort. It just never was, because Brand was out there somewhere- waiting.

Here- in Brand’s arms- Darius thinks he can finally say he feels safe again.

As Darius and Brand block the entry to the room, it’s a little harder for the others to file in. Determined to enter as a unit, the others end up hanging back to watch in wonder as Darius is literally swept off his feat and buried in a tight hug by someone who looks like an older version of himself. It’s the only vision they’re afforded thanks to how the brothers get in the way (not that you can blame them) and it causes the remaining five to hesitate uncertainly. As they watch on, an older woman appears out of seemingly nowhere and attaches herself to the hug. It has to be Darius’ mother, but they don’t really have a good chance to look at her before she vanishes into the pile of Bowmans. It’s an intensely emotional reunion and an indicator that nobody is going to get through this with dry eyes.

Someone says something from inside the room. It’s slightly muffled, but it sounds like-

“Where’s my daughter? Is she here?”

Sammy gives a squeak, and holds her hands up to cover her face. She spreads her fingers just a bit so everyone can see the tears already starting to fall from her eyes. There’s no doubt that whoever’s spoken is someone important to her.

It’s hard to navigate around the Darius/Brand/mother pile but Sammy does so with practised ease. She skirts around the edge of them and darts into the room- registering pale yellow walls and unobtrusive art and soft chairs and starting strangers- before all of that is driven from her mind as she spots the huddle of people standing in the far corner. There’s four of them, each the owner of a face that Sammy has known her whole life. There are tears falling down their cheeks that match Sammy’s, and they all hold their arms open in an unspoken question that Sammy gives them an unspoken answer to.

She crosses the room in three large steps and flings herself with full force at her mum, dad, and sisters. Much like the Bowmans, the Gutierrez family quickly becomes a jumble of arms and legs that absorb their one missing member into the middle for a fiercely tight hug. They’re all crying and talking over the top of each other and rocking back and forth as everyone tries to get their arms around Sammy. There are not many actions that can fill in for the words ‘I love you’ but a hug is one of the rare ones that can. Nobody actually knows what is being said and it doesn’t matter. The family of five doesn’t have much else they can say that gets across their point more than holding Sammy close.

A sense of anxiety and anticipation is starting to fill the air as two campers have their tearful reunions. Those left outside still can’t see much, but those inside crane their necks and try not to glare resentful daggers at those who’ve already gotten to hold their children close. It’s a race to see what will happen next- will another kid breach the gap? Or will a parent finally make the first step.

In the end, it’s Jennifer’s rules that hold out. She’d been patient with the kids, but strict with the parents. Under no circ*mstances were they to leave the room and risk inviting an eager staff member or curios patient the chance to aim a phone their way. Her words ring in the ears of all as they wait anxiously for even more campers to file in- kept only in place by Jennifer’s stern voice and the fear of their children getting splashed across any and every news outlet.

Yaz enters next. She’s nimble- even with her ankle- and she dips down with light fingers to brush a reassuring hand across Darius’ shoulders as she brushes past him. It’s for him, but it’s for her as well. A reminder that they’re still all together even as they start to splinter off. Then, her eyes pick out a woman standing on her own, hands clasped tightly in front of her as she stares desperately at the door. When Yaz steps into sight, she lets out a single cry and grabs at her chest.

Yaz’s face crumples. “Mum.”

She uses even less steps than Sammy had getting to her mum. Someone who isn’t much of a hugger has to get it from somewhere, and Yaz and her mum have never been the kind of touchy-feely mother daughter duo that so many people around them have. But neither hesitates this time as they rush at each other like waves crashing against a sandy shore. Yaz’s hands go up and her mum’s hands go up and they fit together so neatly you’d never think they had barely any practice at this. Yaz’s mum is smaller than she is- Yaz’s height comes from her dad- but she does her best to lift her daughter up like Brand had done for Darius. It makes Yaz giggle through her tears and when her feet meet the ground again, she grounds them and lifts her mum up in turn. She does it with much more ease than her mum, and just for fun she spins her around a little as well.

Now only Ben, Brooklyn, and Kenji remain outside the room. It harkens back to a moment yesterday when they’d first arrived at the hospital- Ben standing protectively in front of Kenji and Brooklyn as doctors and nurses tried to get close to them. They watch the sight they can see of Darius, his brother and his mum holding each other close on the ground. From inside, they can hear Yaz giggling, and Sammy crying. It should be reassurance for them that whatever waits in there is a good, safe thing.

It's not.

Ben sighs, and rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet. He doesn’t want to go in, but he thinks out of the three of them left, he’s probably the one who should.

“Wish me luck,” he mutters, quiet enough that only Brooklyn and Kenji can hear. Then he straightens his shoulders and lifts his chin and strides forward like he’s about to go scream at a Baryonyx.

As it has been with all the others, Ben skirts round the Bowman huddle with ease. He’s the most likely to offer some wry comment about emotionality clogging things up- his sentimentality reserved mostly for Bumpy ever since he survived on his own for those months- but he lets them be. He scans the room, taking note of Yaz and a woman who must be her mother taking turns lifting each other up, and a clump of enthusiastically talking people that surely has Sammy in the centre. Then, his eyes land on a woman. Tall and slender, she sits in a chair. The slight way she leans forward is the only indication that she’s waiting for something.

Ben clears his throat awkwardly. It’s not to get her attention- she’s already looking at him- but he suddenly finds his words drying up in his throat. “Hi…mum…”

She gets up then, and breaks into a run that’s totally pointless in a room this small. Before she’s even started it, she’s stopping. Right in front of him, arms outstretched but hesitating at the last moment.

“Can I…” she starts, and then stops. She stares at him like he’s a stranger breaking into her house. “I mean…”

Ben looks at her, and decides this is something he can do. He steps forward and lets her arms settle around him. His own hang at his side- for some reason he’s not sure what to do with them- but he manages her hold on him. It’s tight, almost suffocating. He doesn’t know why it feels so different from the last hug she gave him. Is it because she’s changed? Or is it because he has?

Back outside, it’s down to two. With only herself and Kenji left, Brooklyn knows with the same certainty in which she breathes that it’s up to her to go next. It’s a little easier to move, she finds when it’s disguised as doing something for someone else. She just has to look at Kenji and the fear in his eyes, and suddenly she’s stepping forward into the room. She lingers by Darius and his family for a beat, like they’re back on the island and she’s waiting for him to make a call. But she doesn’t get to have him tell her what to do this time. This moment is all on her shoulders.

The room has quickly become quite crowded as the various reunions clog the space, so it takes a second for Brooklyn to pick out her dads. For a moment she worries she’s somehow imagined her certainty that they’d arrived, and that actually they aren’t here at all. Her stomach swirls with the beginnings of conflicting emotions, and then Yaz’s mum tugs her daughter into a seat, and she sees them.

They’re standing up and holding hands, heads anxiously craned in the direction of the door she’s just stepped through. The worry that creases their faces make them look ten years older than Brooklyn remembers them being. She can tell the exact moment they catch a glimpse of her because the worry abruptly…well, it doesn’t go away. It’s still there. But it changes into a new kind of worry. Brooklyn is kind of mesmerised by it, and she’s so caught up in trying to identify exactly what’s different about it that she doesn’t even register that her dads have gotten up and hurried over to her until warm arms pull her into a very specific three person hug she hasn’t had in over a year.

“Brook, oh my god,” dad is saying, rubbing strong hands up and down her back the same way he always had when she was very young and having nightmares about monsters under the bed and boogey men in the closet.

“Thank god you’re here,” papa cradles their heads close together. Even if they look older than Brooklyn remembers, she still breathes in the familiar smell of old books that always seems to hover around them- they’re both college professors.

It’s strange, she can’t help but think as she lets them hold her. There’re so many things she could say right now. But she watches them all play out in her head like they’re scripted moments for her videos; none of them feel real. She’s suddenly acutely aware of every socially awkward thing she’s ever done, and how she used to have to edit so much of her videos because she’d muck up take after take by saying the wrong thing. Eventually she fell into the right vocal patterns and learnt the best catchphrases, but it’s not a natural way of speaking. It’s fake.

This is what this feels like. The perfect family reunion, perfectly scripted and acted to attract the highest amount of viewers possible. None of it real. All of it fake. She wishes she was being held by the others instead. Anyone but the people giving her this awkward, stilted, and rehearsed hug.

It’s lonely being the last one to go somewhere, Kenji realises, as his feet stay glued to the floor and his legs refuse to try and pry them up. This must be what Ben had felt like back when they’d all taken off to go to the lookout, and he’d tried to stay behind. It’s almost enough to make Kenji enter the room- whoever might be waiting for him there be damned- but his body isn’t currently syncing up with his mind. Fear (because that’s what it is, fear) seizes his limbs and turns his blood to ice. He may as well be about to enter cryostasis with the once frozen Scorpius Rex.

He has to move though, because the longer he stays out here, the more chance there is of his father getting impatient (Daniel Kon does not like to be kept waiting) and pinning Kenji down in the corridor without any of his friends to back him up. It’s just…it’s one thing to know he needs to move. It’s another thing to actually do it.

But he’s alone now, in the corridor. He can hear people talking and crying- everything’s tinged with joy and relief. Of course, Kenji will have none of those emotions present when he reunites with his father, but he’s glad his friends get to. They deserve it- definitely more than he does. Kenji has long since come to terms with the fact that it’s not his father being awkward around children, or not knowing how to act towards people much younger than him. He just doesn’t like Kenji. If Daniel Kon has Yaz or Brooklyn for a kid, he’d probably love them the way a parent is meant to love a child. Kenji is the exception.

Or…at least he’d thought he was. He’s not sure now. Not when he has five friends-family- who prove time and time again that they love him purely for who he is, and not what he has to offer to them. So maybe his father is wrong, and maybe he just isn’t a very good dad, and maybe-

“Kenji,” a soft voice cuts through his thoughts. It’s Jennifer, still standing there. Kenji had gotten so caught up in his head he’d forgotten she hadn’t left. “Are you going to go in?”

“Oh,” Kenji tries to laugh. “Yeah. Of course. I’m just…planning what I’m gonna say. Big reunion, don’t wanna mess it up.”

“Of course,” Jennifer says. Her eyes pin him to the spot, not that he was actually planning on moving anytime soon. “If I may though, I don’t think what’s waiting in there is anything to be afraid of.”

Huh?

It’s almost- almost- enough to make Kenji unstick himself from the floor and bolt inside, but then logic kicks in (it rarely does with Kenji so it’s a surprise) and keeps him motionless. He doesn’t actually know what Jennifer is implying with that. For all he knows, she just thinks he’s some over the top drama king, retroactively tainting a normal relationship with his father. Or hell, she might not even know about Turci’s suspicions and is just assuming Kenji’s getting worried over nothing. No, it’s better to stay out here. Alone, yes, but safe.

He can still see Darius huddled down with his mum and brother right in the doorway. The way they cling to each other reminds Kenji of nothing he’s ever seen before. Just things he’s imagined- moments he’d dared to hope would happen before finally realising his father would never want to do anything like that. It makes a lump swell in his throat, and he doesn’t like how sour it tastes. Jealousy is an emotion Kenji has become unfortunately familiar with after spending time with people who spoke so fondly about their relationships with family. It’s not fair for him to think that, especially in regards to Darius’ family, who may be holding each other tightly but are still missing someone from their hug.

And that someone isn’t you, he tells himself sharply.

It’s this wave of self-loathing (again, another now familiar feeling that he wishes he hadn’t become so acquainted with) that finally, finally, has him moving. If he’s so awful to think thoughts like this, then he probably deserves whatever is waiting for him in the room.

Kenji steps forward on legs that are steady, surprising himself by how much composure he’s managing to maintain. He wonders if this is what Ben was feeling when his body was standing peacefully in the examination room while his mind was apparently miles and miles away. Kenji does feel a little faint, like his brain isn’t actually doing anything and is just along for the ride his limbs are taking him on. He blinks his eyes, and then gets caught up in a loop as he tries and fails to make it an unconscious action again.

Blink. He’s nearly in the room.

Blink. He’s awkwardly sidestepping the Bowmans.

Blink. His head turns one way and then the next.

Blink. He sees Ben and Brooklyn.

Blink. He sees Yaz and Sammy.

Blink. He sees…

Oh.

Oh.

There’s a person there, clearly waiting for him, but it’s not his father.

It’s not his father.

Kenji’s breath catches a little in his chest. Then, it catches a whole lot, and his blinking finally returns to normal as he instead has to put all his attention on remembering how to breathe. He’s not very good at it at first, much too caught up in trying to process the fact that after everything he’s been through in this hospital- everything that’s happened between him and his father- he isn’t even here.

It's a woman who’s arrived for him, someone Kenji doesn’t recognise really. She has the same sea glass smooth features and polished looks that all the people his father hires though, so he has to assume she’s a new secretary or personal assistant he’s hired in the year since Kenji’s been gone. Her dark black clothes stand out starkly against the pale walls of the room, and her face is so expressionless and she sits so stiffly she could be mistaken for some strange art installation.

There’s a wave of emotions crashing over Kenji but he isn’t sure he can identify any of them clearly. It’s a crashing cacophony of noise that echoes their fateful raft escape attempt that sent them slamming back against the hard sand of the beach. He stands still in the hospital and hears the ocean in his ears. He tries to pick out the feelings the wave brings. There’s anger there, maybe? It burns his tongue like salt water. Relief, surely. He can’t even stomach that though. He’s so conflicted- everything’s so difficult.

The woman looks up finally- breaking the illusion that she’s nothing more than a priceless piece of art- and catches him standing there, staring.

“Mr Kon,” she says. She can’t even call him by his name. He’s just a cheap copy of his father to her. “Your father sends his regards.”

She speaks quietly but somehow her voice still manages to reach over the levels of noise in the room. Around him, the others got still and silent as they attune into this small conversation. Kenji can’t bring himself to look at them, but he’s sure if he did he’d see the sorrow in their eyes. He bites into his tongue to stop himself from lashing out. This is fine. Really, it’s better than fine. His father hasn’t come, and that’s a good thing. It gives Kenji even more time to work out what to do, and it means no well-meaning but oblivious doctor is going to put her foot in her mouth trying to fix a problem that really doesn’t exist.

The woman doesn’t seem aware of the silence she’s induced. She stands and walks over to Kenji. She runs her eyes up and down him like suddenly he’s the piece of art and he needs authenticating. He can’t help but wonder what she’s looking for. A sign that he’s still normal?

“Our plane is waiting,” she says. “Let’s go.”

Kenji physically recoils from her before he can stop it. “What?”

Around him, noise starts back up again as the others start to protest.

“He can’t go yet,” Darius starts, but he’s spoken over so sharply by the woman that it’s a lost cause.

“The plane is waiting,” she repeats. A scrambled part of Kenji’s mind notes that she’s dropped the ‘our’. “And so is your father.”

Those five words send a chill up Kenji’s spine.

“He’s on the plane?” he almost doesn’t want to ask.

The lady tilts her head, considering. “No,” she says. “But he’s waiting back home.”

That’s a word Kenji hasn’t had a good relationship with recently. He doesn’t know where it is, or what it even looks like, but there’s a part of him that’s strangely certain that it isn’t in a giant penthouse with miles of space that nobody can fill in. His father is a giant- a looming presence of a man- and yet even he can’t make his various manors feel less empty.

Suddenly ever nerve in Kenji’s body is alight with a single thought that sets his entire body on fire.

Don’t go back to him.

He takes a step back. The woman doesn’t follow. She keeps her eyes on him though, as if he’s a burning blaze and she’s the Scorpius Rex- briefly mesmerised.

“I…” he opens his mouth, but there’s no words he can possibly say that can do anything about this. Wants and needs are useless when you’re a kid. Especially when you’re a kid like Kenji. The thought is consuming him from the inside- don’t go back to him- but he has no power to make it a reality.

“Kenji…” Sammy’s voice is drowning in concern. He doesn’t want her to feel sad for him. He wants her to be happy that she finally has her family back.

He forces a smile that feels more like shattered glass. “Can I at least say goodbye?” he says.

The woman shrugs, and it’s such a casual movement and yet she still manages to look sleek and elegant and professional. “Make it quick.”

None of the words Kenji wants to say can be condensed into something quick. A year’s worth of apologies and thank you’s and professions of love cannot be ground down into anything simple. He wants to start talking, and never stop. He wants them to know how much they all mean to him in every way there possibly is to convey such a meaning.

Kenji curls a hand around the paper he has- his only connection to the five of them that he’ll have once he goes. He knows it’s not much- they all know that- but it’s going to have to be enough.

“So,” he says. “This is it.”

Five frightened faces stare at him. Even Ben looks scared- terrified in fact.

Kenji’s heart beats a song of melancholy that he’s only ever felt once before in his life. He imagines it the same for them as well. There’s nothing to be said that will fix this. He can only be the person he’s always been told he is. Silly, stupid, vapid. Maybe that’ll make it easier. Maybe if he just pretends everything is fine, then it will be. For them and for him.

“Don’t be strangers.”

Chapter 10: I'm not sure what I want, but I don't think it's this

Chapter Text

How do you just declare six people dead without checking?

A think piece by Natalia Regis.

A year after the Jurassic World Incident that saw numerous casualties and the island shut down permanently, six teenagers who were listed as among the dead have miraculously returned home. Brooklyn TM, Darius Bowman, Yasmina Fadoula, Sammy Gutierrez, Kenji Kon, and Benjamin Pincus were initially confirmed as casualties when the newly bred hybrid dinosaur, the Indominus Rex, broke free of its containment and led a savage rampage across Isla Nublar. Trial participants in the Simon Masrani led project Camp Cretaceous, the six teenagers were allegedly last seen by camp counsellors David Wilson and Roxanne Hatherly on a monorail bound to the Southern Dock where the evacuation of the island was taking place. When all six failed to arrive at the cut off point, the ferries departed without them. They were later announced as having perished on the island.

With the initial chaos of the Jurassic World evacuation not allowing for guest headcounts- and Jurassic World itself not taking note of park customer names- the six teenagers were not officially reported as missing until the ferries dock in Costa Rica and Wilson and Hatherly raised the alarm. It’s here where the timeline gets iffy, and where I gladly put on my conspiracy theory hat and deep dive into a series of questions that should have been asked at the time, but never were.

When news of the Jurassic World Incident started to break across news sites internationally, information was scarce and mostly generated by park guests who had been unfortunate enough to have picked that particular day to take a trip. The Masrani Global Corporation would not issue a statement of their own until almost a week after the island had been evacuated- five days to be exact- and they would not issue a list of casualties for another three weeks after that. During those three weeks friends and loved ones of people yet to be confirmed as dead or alive used media outlets to report those yet to make contact as missing. However, not once are any of the teenagers mentioned in these various reports. You can check for yourself if you don’t trust me, but there is nothing to be found. If you personally did not know the six teens were on the island, then you would have no idea they hadn’t actually returned. Not until the casualties list was released and those six names and their very young ages were made public. One has to assume something was happening behind the scenes- but what?

My conspiracy theory hat is rooted firmly on my head as I say with as much honesty as I can muster, I have no idea what was going on. The circ*mstances are extremely unique. If you look at the casualty list- of which I have no doubt you have all done many times- you will notice that everyone listed as dead was a former employee of Masrani Global Corporation. Not a single park guest died when the Indominus Rex broke out- a genuinely impressive effort that we would love to applaud another time- except for these six teens. And of course as we can now confirm, they were not actually dead. They were reported to be.

This just opens the door for even more head scratching. It is a miraculous thing that these kids have made their way back home to their once bereaved families, but how were they allowed to be mourned for so long in the first place? How was this initial report verified? If the campers were last seen alive, who made the dangerous trip back to Isla Nublar to properly confirm their demise? How had the internet not exploded over six missing teenagers, one of whom is global influencer, Brooklyn TM? Something deeper is clearly afoot here, and the only way it will ever come to the surface is if we investigate.

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Sammy

There’s a ranch to come home to.

There’s a ranch to come home to.

When her dad tells her the news on the flight home- hoping to distract Sammy from how hard she’s crying over having to leave the others, and in such an abrupt and startling way- she bursts into a fresh flood of tears that wash away the sad ones and replaces them with something happier. It’s an alleviation to most of her fears, and it lifts a weight off her chest that she hadn’t even realised had been there until it’s gone. She feels so free and light that she almost believes she could outrun the T-Rex. Almost is the key word- she doesn’t actually want to test this theory. She doesn’t want to have to see a dinosaur (that isn’t Bumpy) for a long, long time.

Unfortunately, the mood is slightly tainted when her dad explains how they’ve kept afloat. This past year, nobody has believed Sammy was alive, and when Jurassic World and the Masrani Global Corporation confirmed her (and the others) as having died on the island, Sammy’s family had sued them for negligence- apparently that’s the official term for allegedly letting a child get killed. There hadn’t been a court case- MGC had settled quickly and without fuss in an attempt to avoid the media sinking their teeth into it- and since then the ranch has been chugging along and attempting to find a bigger client pool than Jurassic Freaking World to take all their meat.

The story leaves Sammy with a weird taste in her mouth that she can’t quite articulate. All she’d ever wanted to do was keep the ranch alive for her family- that’s why she’d gone to Jurassic World in the first place. She thought she’d failed, and now she’s found out that in a way she’d been able to do that. It’s just an odd feeling that her alleged death is what sealed the deal, so to speak. The entire flight home has her wondering what the place looks like after she’d been gone for a year. Is her picture up on the ofrenda? Does her room still exist, or has it been wiped clean of everything in an attempt to move on. Has the family named an animal after her- like how Sammy’s younger sister Hannah had hand raised a chicken once and decided it was a reincarnation of their dead great-grandpa.

Sammy had found it funny at the time, but now she’s not sure what she’ll do if she gets home and there’s a horse or something that’s sharing its name with her. It’ll be even weirder if they look alike or something. She hates to admit it, but that chicken had looked suspiciously like the old photos they have of great-grandfather Luis.

She wants to pull her phone out of where it’s tucked into her pocket- lovingly charged up and brought to Costa Rica by her other sister, Celia- and message the others about this good/weird news, but there’s no Wi-Fi on their plane. Really, Sammy should just be able to lean over and find one of them next to her, but that’s no longer the case. Sammy sits in a row of cramped airplane seats with her dad on one side, and Hannah on the other. Her mum and Celia are directly behind her. She’s surrounded by people she loves and was desperate to get home to, but much like how she doesn’t know how to feel about the story of the ranch being saved, she isn’t sure she can truly say she’s completely and utterly happy. To be that, she needs the others.

Her mind tries to make her feel better in its usual scattered way by assaulting her with a barrage of memories of their time on the island, but it just leaves her feeling even lonelier. She doesn’t want to remember how good it had felt to discuss Esther Stone theories with Brooklyn and Kenji, or how safe she’d felt each night when she’d cuddled up to Yaz in their shared bunk. She feels adrift without Darius’ guidance, and on edge without Ben’s senses to confirm nothing’s tracking them. Maybe it’s the rose-coloured glasses or something, but there isn’t a single thing about them that she doesn’t love. They’re her everything.

It's annoying, Sammy thinks, that she’s had a heap of her worries eased and yet her mind still won’t stop dancing around and coming up with new things that lead her down rabbit holes. With the ranch confirmed safe (at the cost of her family’s happiness, because how could you feel happy at a place that’s apparently paid for in blood money over your daughter’s supposed death) she now starts to fret over the others. For starters, the way Kenji had said goodbye and left with that strange woman doesn’t sit right with her. She’s afraid something bad is going to happen to him when he gets home, and she hates that she can’t do anything about it. She’d seen how uncomfortable Brooklyn had looked with her dads, and Ben had appeared the same with his mum, and that scares her as well. Darius had seemed overjoyed- but Sammy had been overjoyed as well and she already has these doubts setting in. What if it’s the same for him?

And Yaz…Yaz had clung to her mother and they’d both cried and they’d both laughed, and they’d never let go of each other- and how can Sammy be so selfish and wish that Yaz chose to come home with her instead? Sammy thinks she might be an awful person. She was the one to confess to the others that her heart was torn into two between her old family and her new one, and how that wasn’t something she should be ashamed of, even if she knew it was going to be hard. Now she’s here wishing Yaz didn’t have the exact same feelings, and hating herself for it.

Sammy peels her hand open from where it’s grasping the piece of paper with everyone’s details on it. The second they touch down in Texas she’s opening her phone and starting up a group chat. It’s barely been an hour since they were launched into the air and already Sammy feels as though someone has cut out pieces of her and left her hollow and empty. She loves her family, she does! She had missed them when she was on the island making the best of a life with the others. Now it will be the opposite, with her back with her old family and missing the new one.

The plane bounces lightly through a patch of turbulence that has Hannah gasping, and their dad gripping his armrest with knuckles half white thanks to how tightly he holds on. Sammy barely blinks. She can’t remember if flying ever used to scare her, but if it did then that’s well and truly in the past now. She’s survived a helicopter crash and a raft capsizing and numerous days on a choppy sea. Not to mention all the dinosaurs. It’s much more natural to be scared of something that’s alive. The plane has no ill will against Sammy- no need to see her brought out of the sky.

A small hand slips into hers. Sammy looks down in surprise and sees Hannah has initiated the contact. A year has passed, but she looks exactly the same as Sammy had remembered- long dark hair and scattering of freckles. It’s both a comforting thing, and an odd thing. Here is Hannah, apparently still the same. And here is Sammy, completely and utterly different. Does Hannah recognise her?

“I missed you,” Hannah says softly. Sammy can barely hear her over the roar of the plane engines- a noise that sometimes manages to sound like the rumbling of a dinosaur. “More than you can imagine.”

Sammy thinks of six planes leaving Costa Rica with six teens on each of them- one closer than close and now being pulled apart. Hannah is right, technically, because Sammy doesn’t need to imagine what it feels like to miss someone so badly it hurts. She’s already living it right now.

Ben

It’s been a week since he got back to his house and Ben doesn’t think he’s managed to sleep more than a few hours. He knows this isn’t a healthy goal to meet (if he had a sleep app on his phone it would be screaming at him) but it’s one of those things that is entirely out of his control, whether he likes it or not. Ben is big on control at the moment- he’s slowly working on turning his room into a veritable bunker of safety complete with traps and an alternate escape route, and once his mum goes back to work (she’s lingering around while she tries and fails to convince herself that the same son who left for Jurassic World has come back) he’ll probably do the same for the whole house. He attacks the task with the kind of dedicated mindset he’d been able to slip into during the later periods of time when he’d been doing it alone in the jungle, and all the while his body grows slower and his mind protests the long hours and the eyebags he sports grow darker, and deeper.

If it was up to him (and it should be) then Ben would sleep. It sounds so easy when he thinks of it like that. He should just sleep, duh! All problems solved, tick a box and go on his merry way. Post ‘got six hours of shut eye tonight’ in the weekly updates Darius asks for and have them all love-heart react to it. Except he lies down in his bed- too comfortable, feels wrong- and he closes his eyes and then his brain just kicks into overdrive. His body tenses up and remains that way no matter what he does. The hours melt away and if he does manage to drop off, it’s barely noticeable. Then the sun peers through his curtains (he’s working on getting black out blinds) and his mum calls from downstairs that breakfast is ready, and he needs to get up- even if he barely picks at the food. Ben is unsure if she’s even noticed how exhausted he looks all the time, or if she has and she’s just pretending not to. She means well, he thinks, but he’s always been a hard child to raise. Surviving on an abandoned island for a year has not changed this; it’s just made things hard for different reasons.

Ben can’t resent his mum for sending him to Jurassic World. Not anymore, when he’s sure his time there has changed him for the better…maybe. There’s still a bitterness clinging to him though that he probably should unpack because he’s not sure why it’s there, but it’s on a list of so many things to work through and he’d just rather focus on the physical things right now. The things easy to control because they’re outside of his body and he’s the one who can influence them. Tired as he is, Ben still trusts his hands to remain steady and get the job done. Maybe if he gets all the work completed, his body will finally let him rest. Maybe- deep down- he’s still not sure it’s safe to sleep. Not without…

Well, he tries not to think about who he had to leave behind on the island. It’s better that way.

Without the others around to need protection, Ben’s senses should presumably settle into something normal. Instead, they’re on edge as ever. The tiniest noise has him tensing up in preparation for action. The creak of his mum’s foot on the stairs in their narrow townhouse never fails to pull him out of whatever he’s paying attention to. There’s a tree much too close to his window and it scrapes against the glass during the night when it’s windy, sending Ben bolting upright in preparation of a dinosaur attack he shouldn’t have to fear anymore. The kettle reaches its boiling point and he jumps. A deliveryman knocks on the door and he visibly bristles. His mum reaches out to brush a hand across his forehead, and he flinches.

But it’s fine, Ben tells himself. It’s normal. It’s to be expected. Things are gonna be a little rough but they’ll turn out fine. They did on the island- eventually- so it has to happen here. He’ll finish fortifying his room, and then his mum will go back to work and he can start fortifying the house. The extra security will set his mind at ease so he can get some sleep, and his stomach will settle down so he can eat. His senses will stop shooting into overdrive every time someone so much as implies they’re about to make a noise. Ben has survived extreme changes before. If he can make through months along in a dinosaur infested jungle, a suburban townhouse is child’s play.

It might be different if Ben were to actually go outside and face the vastness of the world, but he’s not doing that right now. He has everything he needs right here in his house so there’s no reason to leave- just like how he’d had his little camp out in the jungle that he didn’t have to go far from. Plus, Brooklyn keeps sending articles in their group chat (currently Sammy’s winning the naming rights battle and it’s called Camp Fam Y’all but Ben things Kenji will snap soon and change it to something like I lived bitch) about how big and famous they are, so Ben isn’t about to let a bunch of clout chasing adults chase him down the street to take pictures of him. He’s run from enough creatures to last a lifetime.

He doesn’t ever read the articles Brooklyn sends, just garners the gist of them from the titles. He could- he certainly has enough time on his hands at night when he’s lying there, trying to think of things to do that will make him tired. He doesn’t want to read about himself though. It reminds him too much of floating outside his body in the hospital, an observer to something that was happening to him (and Kenji) with no control over anything. Ben had been the one to step out of his body, but the feeling it had left him with had shaken him to his very core, and perhaps even deeper. Ben doesn’t want to view himself from another person’s eyes, which is a huge problem with what his mum is trying to get him to do.

His mum keeps wanting to make various different appointments for him, which is probably why she keeps digging her heels in about going back to work. The package of paperwork the hospital in Costa Rica gave her is extensively detailed, not that Ben knows that from firsthand experience. His mum won’t let him read it because apparently ‘he’s just a kid’ and he ‘shouldn’t be exposed to that stuff’. She consults it when he’s not in the room and then tries to enforce suggestions from it when he is. Ben has only recently developed a backbone and he uses it in full force to shut down everything she tries to get him to do. If someone’s going to mess around with his body then he should have the deciding vote in it, and he’s not going to go in blind. He needs information, and she won’t give it to him.

(It’s that need for control again.)

They don’t fight- because Ben’s mum is one of those people who just passively listens to you and then says things like ‘I’m sorry you feel that way’ and ‘if that’s what you think’ which is a very affective shutdown. They just talk at each other, with neither person listening to the other. In the end, even though Ben’s mum wants him to go to doctors and specialists and therapists, she can’t drag him out of the house; he’s grown stronger than her. So they’re at a stalemate. She won’t give him the file and he won’t go until she lets it see him. She says it might kill him, and he bites back the urge to say ‘who cares?’

Late at night when Ben’s not sleeping, he wonders if it’s like this for the others- the constant confliction and the constant exhaustion and the constant everything. He could very easily pull out his phone and ask, but something holds him back. He tells himself he wouldn’t burden them with these things even if they were together.

It feels like a lie.

Yaz

Back home after a year of trying to come to terms with never seeing it again, it feels to Yaz as though she’s traded one hospital for another. The second she got off the plane her mum was hailing a taxi and directing them to the huge white building, pouring over the file of Yaz’s medical information for the whole drive. The only difference is that the one she’s staying in now is a lot less nice than the private one in Costa Rica- even if she does have a window she can look through to remind herself that she’s back where she (supposedly) belongs. Well, it’s not the only difference. It’s just that the other thing that’s different is something she’s trying not to think about.

As Yaz spends a few days (“three days, and then we’ll assess, Ms Fadoula”) bound to a bed after surgeons successfully re-break her ankle and set it properly, she’s joined by three other people in her room. There’s an elderly man who’s had a fall at home, a woman maybe eight years older than Yaz who’s been in a car accident, and another man who’s been involved in some sort of crushing incident at work, whose age Yaz can’t get a read on. They’re all perfectly acceptable roommates who don’t complain about Yaz keeping her light on as late as she can, and who keep low voices whenever they have visitors. Yaz- who’s had a few hospital stays in her lifetime- can honestly say they’re probably the best people she’s ever roomed with.

She resents them anyway.

It’s nothing against who they are, but it’s got everything to do with who they’re not. They’re not Brooklyn with her ever increasing enthusiasm for whatever takes her interest. They’re not Kenji and his corny jokes that always make everyone laugh despite themselves. They’re not Ben- late night talks and shows of support. They’re not Darius and his steady leadership that keeps the ground feeling solid beneath her. And they’re definitely not Sammy with her…everything.

Yaz has her phone back to keep her company in the hospital- strangely heavy in her hands after going so long without it- and unless her mum or a doctor is drawing her attention, she’s never not on it. She’s desperate to make things feel like normal, even though deep down she knows it’s not working at all, and even if nobody else is online (a rare but occasional occurrence) Yaz likes to be, just so she can pretend they’re all still in the same room. The low buzzing of a notification isn’t the same as the gentle sounds of everyone breathing, but Yaz does her best to act like it is.

It's strange to have been with them for a year and then lose it all. Yaz keeps rolling over at night- awkwardly thanks to the bulky cast her leg has been sealed in- and expecting to run into one of them, creeping into her bunk to starve off the cold. Or she opens her mouth to say something only to close it when she realises the people she’s aiming it at aren’t actually with her. It hurts more than the ever-present dull ache that her ankle radiates. She refuses every offer of pain medication the staff try to force on her. She’d rather ground herself on the kind of agony she’s used to, instead of this overwhelming new force that leaves her feeling like she’s just been shot in the stomach.

(Like Sammy had been)

The hospital is a bubble that seals Yaz inside with all her pains and regrets. She knows that outside it is an entire country braying for answers over what happened to her. Her mum says there are lawyers getting involved, and that her dad is thinking of flying in from Australia where he’s been living for the past five years so he can see her in person. None of this matters to Yaz right now though. Sure, the nurses stare at her curiously whenever they have to come in, and yes, they had to ban student doctors from her room because one of them snuck in a phone, but all of that still feels like it’s part of another world- one Yaz has yet to enter. She’s still stuck in this weird limbo where she’s being torn in half by the past and by the future. Stuff is happening in preparation of the life she’s going to return to, but her mind is still fixating on the year that has been.

There’s not much you can do when you feel like that. Yaz keeps her bedside light on as long as she dares so she can’t mistake the darkness of the room for a lurking dinosaur, and she pretends not to notice when her body freezes up for far longer than can be considered natural. She thinks there’s a chance she’d talk to Sammy about these things if she was here, but all Yaz has is a hospital therapist who awkwardly fumbles his way through conversations they have; Yaz isn’t trying to be uncooperative but some of his questions are so stupid that it just kind of happens. It’s not his fault her experiences are entirely unique (except that they’re not, because there’re five other people who shared them) but Yaz holds a grudge anyway, just like she does with her roommates.

She doesn’t tell the others this whenever they’re online together, spamming a group chat that alternates between being called something like Camp Fam 4 Life (courtesy of Sammy) and jokes such as Reports of my death were greatly exaggerated (Kenji’s contribution). They’re all being a little too casual every time they talk, like somehow their interactions are still tainted by the awful way they’d said goodbye. It had been such a traumatising thing to go through- the way they’d been pulled apart one by one with none of their parents bar perhaps Darius’ mum and Sammy’s dad understanding how much this was hurting. Yaz has questions, things she wants to ask the others about what’s been happening, but right now it seems this layer of false cheer is what they’re relying on to get through things.

Fake it till you make it, Yaz often thinks with a grimace that is mostly to do with Kenji’s bad jokes and not the pain radiating up her leg.

She’s not trying to say she doesn’t appreciate the fact that they’re all still in contact- far from it. But it’s a pale imitation of what they once had, and she knows they can all feel it. Mostly, Yaz misses Sammy’s voice like crazy. She could just ring, sure, but she knows Sammy had been so desperate to get back to her family that Yaz can’t bring herself to be that one that stops Sammy from doing that for even just a few minutes.

Really, all Yaz wants to do is ask is everyone else feels as broken as she does- in the same way Darius had when they’d first ended up alone in that Costa Rican hospital. Are they having the nightmares she is? Are they afraid of a reality that used to be so normal, but now sends ice through her veins? Do they wish life could be as simple as just striving to make it through the day again? She could ask these all, and more. She’s too afraid of the answer though, so she never does. Maybe she’ll wait until she’s out of hospital- wait until the bubble pops- and then she’ll try. For now, it probably is just best to let everyone pretend. Yaz isn’t a good actor but she thinks she can make it work.

No…it can’t be as vague as just thinking it. She has to make it work. She’ll fake it so well that by the time she’s made it, she won’t even remember what was so hard about. If she can just get across this new finish line, then things can go back to normal.

Yaz can go back to normal.

Kenji

I lived bitch, I loved bitch, I laughed bitch

Me: Do you guys think we’re famous enough to be on SNL?

Me: Like, we could all host together and do sketches that make fun of JW

Super Star: I think I am

Super Star: Not sure about u

Me: Rude!

Track Queen: But true

Me: Why r u guys so mean to me ToT

Ranch Girl: I think it’d be cool to be on SNL!

Me: Thank u Sammy!

Jungle Boy: Absolutely not no it wouldn’t be

Me: Camera shy?

Jungle Boy: You wish

Dino Nerd: What’s SNL?

Me: Ur joking

Kenji looks up from his phone, certain there’s a fond smile on his face and thankful that nobody’s around to point it out and make fun of it. A part of Kenji is almost glad that the only way he’s talking to the others right now is through online chats, even if it’s also a total downer. It means he can carefully curate his personality into something that seems normal and chill and totally Kenji-core. He knows the others are worried about him- they’ve told him themselves in private chats they all sent once they’d landed back in America in their various states- and he’s doing his best to alleviate those worries. They’re off the island and safe from getting killed by dinosaurs, so Kenji isn’t going to bring the mood down in a different way by being a downer. He knows he got all weird in the hospital and maybe let too much of his homelife slip, but it doesn’t matter. He’s back in the mansion and everything’s fine.

It's been almost two weeks now and he hasn’t even seen his father, sure. Kenji doesn’t even know if Daniel Kon is here, or at some other property he owns. But honestly, that’s not a bad thing. Kenji hadn’t exactly been lain up in a hospital in Costa Rica hoping his father would walk through the door. In fact, he’d been hoping for anything but. Yes, the crippling isolation he’s slowly slipping into is kinda unnerving, but it’s also nothing Kenji’s not used to. It’s almost comforting to realise nothing has changed. Kenji can go off and nearly die, and then he can come home to the same old stuff.

(It’s not comforting at all)

Okay, if Kenji’s going to be honest- and he’s been told a lot he’s too honest for his own good because he always just says what’s on his mind- then maybe it is a little weird to go from a year of constantly being around people he loves to being entirely alone, bar a few staff appearing now and again that he doesn’t even recognise and who won’t even talk to him. He’s getting weird shivers running up and down his skin that he has to use hot showers to get rid of- except it rarely ever works. His bed feels much too big and he keeps ending up curled up in the middle of it like he’s expecting people to be on either side of him. He’s started talking to himself just to fill some of the chilling silences that punctuate his day, even if the vast emptiness just ends up swallowing it whole.

Time and time again Kenji finds himself standing in the bathroom, staring at himself in the mirror. It’s not a vain action at all, because he hates the person that looks out at him. Like, surely that’s not him. That scarred, skinny boy whose eyes look like they’ve either seen a ghost, or actually belong to a ghost- that can’t be him. Kenji keeps trying to practise his usual co*cky smile, but it falls apart as easily as a card tower on a windy day. It’s so utterly not-Kenji that he almost becomes frightened of it. He keeps looking though, just in case something changes. Maybe he’ll somehow flip a switch in his sleep and wake up normal again.

He gives in once and googles a bunch of the things he’s feeling, in hopes of finding that easy fix. He’s Kenji Kon, after all. There’s nothing he likes more than doing things the easy way. Every result he gets tells him he’s in severe psychological distress, or that he’s touch starved, or that he has PTSD, so he must be writing in stuff wrong. None of those things are what Kenji are. He’s just a little…lonely.

Help to that problem is just a few easy clicks away, and it’s probably why Kenji is the most vocal in a chat that is already constantly being used by everyone. It’s not the best fix for the problem but it does enough to curb the growing ache of loneliness that eats away at Kenji’s insides. He never actually says outright that that’s what he is- he just keeps posting sh*t at all hours of the night, and responding first the second anyone else says anything, and he asks for photos that sometimes get sent and sometimes don’t so he can remind himself of what everyone looks like. Not that he’s forgetting that, of course. Not at all. He just wants to see them.

Should Kenji just…tell the others he doesn’t think he’s okay? Or will that just be too much after everything else they’ve already been through. Just because Kenji’s homelife isn’t A+, ten out of ten, doesn’t mean he has to drag the others into his misery. They’re all back with the people they love who they’d wanted to get home to since the second they’d become trapped on the island. Kenji owes it to them- like, f*ck does he owe them after everything they’ve put up with when it comes to him- to let them have some peace.

Maybe- just maybe- if his father does seek him out, and things start to creep into that dark period he’d been living in ever since his mum passed, then Kenji will say something. Maybe. And only if it’s really, really bad. Until then, he’s fine. He’s better than fine. He’s normal. He’s Kenji Kon.

A part of him is afraid of every knock on the door, and what it might bring. Try as he might, he can’t forget the hushed whisper of Doctor Turci in the hospital, of the organisation she had suggested contacting. The days go by and there’s no sign of them appearing, but Kenji still does everything he possibly can to wipe the thought of that happening from his mind. His phone buzzing at the very second provides him the perfect chance to do just that.

It’s Camp Fam, Kenji!

Dino Nerd: How’s this week been for everyone?

Me: All g here!

Jungle Boy: You sure about that?

Me: 100% Benny Boy

Me: Don’t fret about lil ol me

Kenji can feel the burn of Ben’s suspicious glare through the screen of his phone, and shifts uncomfortably. He knows, his mind supplies unhelpfully, and he can’t help but grimace. He finds himself glad once again that nobody can actually see him. Otherwise they’d know straight away that he isn’t his usual self. He can only maintain this illusion through his words. He stares at the screen as the rest of the replies to Darius’ question trickle in until his vision goes blurry. Everyone else says they’re fine. Maybe a little tired, but that’s apparently it. They’re all doing their best to move on, and Kenji wants that for them- he does. He just knows he’s going to be last in line to get it for himself.

Still, that doesn’t mean he gets to deny them the head start they deserve. He wipes his eyes- when had they started to tear up- and goes to change the name of the group chat again.

Met God, She’s a Dinosaur

Ranch Girl: Kenji istg!!!!!!!!!

Me: Yeah, god the dinosaur

He tries for a laugh and hears it echo through the empty marble of a house he’s long since given up on thinking of as a home.

Brooklyn

The first thing Brooklyn does when she gets home is buy a new phone. Well, she doesn’t go out and buy it herself- that would be stupid. She orders it online and forks out the money for express shipping without even batting an eye, thanks to how much is in her bank accounts. It’s a better version of the one broken in the chaos of escaping the Indominus Rex, and when it arrives, Brooklyn spends a day in her picture-perfect room customizing it to her liking and logging back into all her accounts. She briefly mourns the few photos from Jurassic World that she hadn’t uploaded to the Cloud, but moves on pretty quickly. She’s more curious than she should be about what’s been happening online since her disappearance. She’s pretty sure (almost certain) that she doesn’t want the life of an online star anymore, but she can’t shake her old habits of just logging on to anything to scroll.

There’s a year’s worth of content to trawl through and it’s not like Brooklyn wants to be downstairs with her dads at the moment, so she times a quick trip down to the kitchen to make a smoothie (re-adjusting to normal food diet approved!) when they’re having some kind of private conversation about her in the study- which turns into a long trip when it turns out the whole things been renovated in the year she’s been gone and she can’t find anything- and then locks herself away back in her room to dig through every single thing that’s been said about the campers. Her bed barely shifts underneath her when she sits down and it makes Brooklyn look around with a frown as she is starkly reminded that this room is surprisingly impersonal.

Brooklyn travels- travelled- a lot for work, and she was rarely ever home. It’s why her bed is so stiff; she never sleeps in it. Her room is picturesque, gorgeously styled thanks to a Brooklyn Unboxes Ikea video that had gone viral more than once, but it’s really not her style at all. It’s the pretend one she has for the fans- the one they think she should have. Brooklyn glances around and can’t resist the urge to pull faces at the things she’d used to think were cool and marketable. It all has to go; this will be the first project she assigns herself as she fights to get her life back on track. She’s thinking less pink, more range of colours. And no more artsy prints that just aren’t her. She wants to cover the walls in pictures of her friends, so she’ll always be able to see them. If her dads can redecorate and renovate their way into a new life, then so can she.

Decision made on that particular problem, Brooklyn turns her attention back to her phone. She still has a hint of trepidation about doing this, but it’s a good distraction from things she doesn’t want to think about right now- namely her dads. Looking up her name on Twitter earns her a flurry of results that almost make her head spin. Even at the height of her fame, she hadn’t been talked about this much. It’s sort of nauseating. Truthfully, she doesn’t have to do this. She should just toss her phone aside and embrace New Brooklyn. Or better yet, she should keep her phone but sign out of all her accounts except for the one that matters most now, and join the others in the newly formed group chat that Sammy and Kenji are currently fighting over the name of. She keeps getting the buzz of notifications and the alert that it’s now being called something like Didn’t die but came back wrong, or Camp Fam 5Ever. It puts a smile on her face and proves that she can still do that, even after they’ve been pulled their separate ways.

Brooklyn loves them. She’s protective over them, even as the second youngest. She knows she might not have the best social skills (and that’s saying something with Yaz around), but she’s wise when it comes to the ways of the web. She knows they’re going to be hounded by the media. Six supposed dead kids emerging from a dinosaur infested island after being left there over a year ago? They’re the biggest thing in the world right now, and in Brooklyn’s eyes, that’s not a good thing. If she can get into the dirt and the grit of everything and help the others navigate their newfound fame, then that’s a good thing. It’s probably the best (and only) thing she can do.

She grinds her teeth together in the sort of action that makes her think she might need a mouth guard, and gets to work with enough determination to (mostly) stomach the bullsh*t that makes up seventy to eighty percent of what she’s reading. The return of what people are calling ‘The Nublar Six’- catchy but Brooklyn will always prefer Camp Fam- is mostly an open invitation for a bunch of conspiracy theorists to crawl out of the woodwork and start wondering why exactly they all got declared dead if they weren’t. The delivery leaves a lot to be desired but they do make some good points that has Brooklyn asking the same question. She even stumbles across some sort of think piece that says Dave and Roxy saw them on the monorail, so how come they ended up dead in the eyes of the public? The spark of a potential investigation sets Brooklyn’s nerves ablaze as she remembers how good it had felt to lay down a theory at the start of a video and then spend the rest of the run time slowly unpacking it until she’d come to a conclusion.

Maybe this is who the new Brooklyn is. A mix of the old one, just out of the public eye thanks to an awareness of how toxic it’s actually been for her. She loves investigating- there’s a reason her videos began as simple ‘get ready with me’ and ‘story time’ formats, and eventually became the hit series Brooklyn Unboxes. She has a knack for finding the answers to questions people would prefer stay hidden. It’ll be hard to find the truth she has her eyes set on when there’s so many people making false claims, but she relishes the chase. On the island she’d used her desperate need for a clear end point as a way to cope with the terrifying reality that they were stuck. Now she’ll use it as the fun thrill it’s always been.

Or it’s just another distraction, the voice in her head that’s just her says.

Brooklyn’s phone buzzes in her hand with a message from Darius asking how everyone is. She almost clicks over to answer it, and then pauses. What can she say right now that wouldn’t be a lie? She’s not okay with this new reality, and it’s barely been two days since the old one ended. She should give herself time to make peace with it, but she knows it won’t happen. The emptiness in her stomach is something that can’t be patched up with a stupid healthy smoothie- it can only be fixed by the others being here. But saying that will just be repeating that same old tired ‘stuck in a kelp forest’ conversation they all got so stuck on in the hospital, and Brooklyn won’t do that to herself again.

Brooklyn can offer them something though. Proper answers for why they got left on the island- something they’ve never had before. If she pastes on Old Brooklyn and breezes through conversations, then she can dedicate most of her time to uncovering this mystery. That’s how she’ll be useful.

That’s how she’ll cope with…everything.

Darius

After a year spent encountering the real deal, the dinosaurs in Darius’ room feel cheap and inaccurate. They welcome him home with lifeless eyes and a thick quilt of dust that makes him sneeze when he brushes his fingers against a row of figurines.

“Mum couldn’t bare coming in here,” Brand says from where he’s leaning against the doorframe, keeping an eye on Darius like he thinks he’ll disappear if Brand takes his eyes off him.

Darius gives a hum of acknowledgement. He can’t stop looking at his computer- at the very site where he’d sealed his fate and booked his trip to Jurassic World. He searches for a feeling of regret inside himself and comes up empty. Even after everything he’s been put through, the friendships he’s made and the amazing things he’s seen outweigh all the negatives. At least they do for now. When the reality of his isolation from the other campers sets in, Darius fears he may feel otherwise.

“Do you wanna talk about anything?” Brand ventures. He’s hovering in a major way but Darius doesn’t mind at all. He’s gone a year without seeing his brother, when prior to that he’d barely gone a day without him. He feels a little less alone with Brand just a few steps away.

What Darius isn’t sure about though, is talking about the island. Not yet anyway. It’s still insanely fresh in his mind, and yes, the good outweighs the bad in his mind at the moment, but…there are only five other people in this world that Darius feels comfortable discussing Isla Nublar with, and sadly Brand isn’t on that list. Darius loves his brother, but he’s not sure Brand will understand everything they’ve been through. Maybe when some more time has passed, he’ll feel ready.

“I’m okay right now,” Darius says. He’s just spotted his phone lying on his desk where he left it, after he was told it wasn’t allowed on the camp. He’d barely thought twice about abandoning it- never one to use it for anything other than texting his family. Things are different now. The sheet of paper is safely tucked in his pocket, and he itches to pull it out and put it to use. “Maybe later.”

“I’m always here, D,” Brand says. Darius almost shivers. He remembers the last person to use that nickname for him, and it wasn’t Brand.

“I know,” he says instead. “Thanks.”

So time passes.

A week, and then another. Darius does his best to get involved in things so it feels like he’s participating in his life, rather than having things just happen at him. He goes to see his doctor for checkups and pours over all the schoolwork he’s missed so he’ll be ready when it’s time to go back in person; they’re waiting until the media surrounding him dies down. He eats all his hospital approved meals with his mum and Brand, and drinks warm milk before sleeping because it’s supposed to help him feel restful. He checks in with the others regularly, so attached to his phone that his mum once tried to confiscate it. Darius- trying to be a dutiful son to make up for vanishing for a year- allows this for an hour before an itch under his skin starts up and it’s so painful that he finds her in the kitchen and begs for it back. He cries, and then she cries, and then Brand finds them both and he starts crying as well. They get takeaway that night for dinner- nobody’s up for cooking- and stay up late talking about nothing in particular. Darius falls asleep on the couch and wakes up in his bed, with his mum tucked up next to him the same way she’d done after his dad passed. She asks him if he’ll see a therapist. He says he’ll think about it.

Life stagnates.

He looks at every article Brooklyn sends- sometimes in the group chat and sometimes just to him- as she tries to find answers for a question Darius had never considered to ask. He sends bad memes to Kenji when he thinks maybe he’s trying to hard to sound cheery just so Kenji will start bemoaning his lack of pop culture knowledge. He shows Yaz pictures of all his old dinosaur drawings, and she sends back fake rave reviews over them. He backs Sammy up whenever she changes the group chat name to something wholesome and cute. He slowly draws Ben out of his shell of forced bravado. Darius is the leader, and even with them all miles and miles apart, he’s doing his best to live up to that.

He mourns his field guide sometimes- lost somewhere in the mud and dirt of Isla Nublar during their many escape attempts. He misses all the information he’d recorded in it, and he misses Yaz’s drawings that she’d added to it. He mopes around for a bit over it, and then digs out one of his many old, unused notebooks and tries to start up a new one. It’s not the same obviously, since there are no dinosaurs to detail, and so Darius finds it becoming a diary of sorts. He still isn’t seeing a therapist like his mum had asked but this is the next best thing. Well, second next best thing. He’d prefer to talk about his feelings with the others, but nobody seems to be eager to do that in the group chat. They’re all feigning (he’s pretty sure it’s feigning, because it feels the same to him) being fine and normal, and so Darius fears if he came in and opened up about his nightmares or something that he’d just kill the mood.

He lies awake at night though, and wonders if any of the others are doing the same.

The lack of sleep weighs on him. He feels the distance stretching between them like it’s a tangible pull at his insides. Brand finds him pacing sometimes, like each step in a different direction will ease that painful tugging. He watches with worried eyes but never presses. He hasn’t asked Darius if he’d like to talk since the very first day home- he just waits for Darius to be the one to offer. Darius sees the pain he feels reflected in Bran’s face, and wishes he could be more honest with him. But if Darius can’t open up to the other campers, there’s no chance he can with Brand. He feels bad about that; he’s an awful brother. He just…he just misses his friends so much. All this time Darius fought to get home and he did, but now it feels like he’s just doing the same again- just in reverse.

“You should go see them,” Brand says finally. Things are kind of bad at the moment, which is probably why he says it. It’s been a month since Darius got home, and he’s stopped doing his schoolwork and sleeping at night and eating meals with his family and eating anything at all. He doesn’t go to a doctor for checkups, and he rarely writes in his diary, and every message he sends in the group chat is as fake as the rest.

“I’m fine,” Darius says.

“No,” Brand tells him. “You’re not.”

Darius puts his head in his hands. “It doesn’t matter,” he says. “Whether I’m okay or not. I can’t just drop everything to see them. Not after I only just got back.”

Brand gives him the kind of look only an older sibling can get away with. “There are other ways to lose someone,” he says. “I’m watching it happen, Darius. You’re here, but you’re not here. Do you even know it’s happening?”

Darius curls the fingers of his left hand around his right wrist with ease; he’s too skinny. His pulse butterflies frantically. He doesn’t think it has it within him to be normal anymore.

“I can,” he says. “I can see it.”

“So go see them,” Brand urges. “Please.”

“But mum-”

“Asked me to have this conversation with you. We both agree you need it.”

Darius has his phone in his pocket- when does he not- and with encouraging nods from Brand, he pulls it out.

“What if they…what if we can’t do it?” Darius can’t bring himself to open the chat- currently labelled with the Kenji creation, I’m a bad bitch, u can’t kill me.

“Nuh uh,” Brand says. “Don’t think like that. You guys made it through a year on dinosaur island. You can make a cross-state catch up work. Now hurry up and send the stupid message before I do it for you.”

Smiling despite himself, Darius does just that.

I’m a bad bitch, you can’t kill me

Me: Hey guys

Me: About those trips to see each other we talked about…

Chapter 11: Plot a course to the night to a place I once knew

Chapter Text

Brooklyn

It’s camp fam or it’s nothing, Kenji!

Rich Bitch: Sooooooooooo

Rich Bitch: Where we gonna meet up?

Rich Bitch: Fancy penthouse vaccay?

Ranch Girl: Y’all can stay with me if you like

Ranch Girl: Plenty of room, and my parents totally want to meet y’all

Ranch Girl: Especially Yaz

Track Queen: I’d like to meet them too

Track Queen: Mum would be happier with that as well

Track Queen: Instead of staying in a hotel or something

Rich Bitch: Fine

Rich Bitch: We’ll do the penthouse next time

Dino Nerd: U sure it’s okay with them?

Ranch Girl: Absolutely!

Jungle Boy: I’m not sure my mum’s gonna go for it

Track Queen: Run away from home then

Jungle Boy: You’re hilarious

Jungle Boy: She’s said yes to a trip already I’ll have you know

Jungle Boy: I meant staying at a ranch

Jungle Boy: She thinks they have all kinds of diseases

Ranch Girl: We have a perfect health and safetuy rating

Ranch Girl: *safety

Dino Nerd: So we can all make it?

Ranch Girl: Obvi!

Track Queen: Yep

Rich Bitch: U know it!!

Jungle Boy: //thumbs up emoji

Rich Bitch: Did you just type thumbs up emoji?????!?!?!

Dino Nerd: Brooklyn?

Me: Gimme a minute

Brooklyn creeps into the kitchen with the knowledge that what she is about to ask won’t go down well for a variety of reasons, one being that it’s unfair of her to be asking for something without offering nothing in return. Since arriving home, Brooklyn has been a reluctant participant in her own family, avoiding being in the same room as her dads for anything longer than a few minutes and answering questions with monosyllabic answers that give nothing away. They’re being patient as best they can- because it’s obvious she’s going through some pretty understandable sh*t and they can’t simply tell her to let it go- but it's a patience she senses is wearing thin. For the last few days they’ve been asking her if she’s going to start posting again soon and suggesting video ideas. Brooklyn is torn between being angry that they haven’t noticed her reluctance to return to the online world, and understanding why they haven’t since she hasn’t exactly been talking to them.

She’s talking to them now though.

“Dad,” she says. “Papa. I…”

Both her dads perk up from where they’d been standing at the sparkling marble bench that screams ‘brand new’ and preparing a hearty breakfast Brooklyn will barely pick at.

“Sleep well?” Dad asks.

“Breakfast smoothie?” Papa offers.

Brooklyn forces a smile. “That’d be nice,” she says. “Thanks.”

If she wants this to happen then she has to meet them halfway. She’s ignoring them mostly because she’s having conflicting feelings about the way they’ve handled her internet fame, but they have no clue that’s the reason. It’s not fair of her to not give them a chance to explain themselves. And she can’t make them understand how much going to see the others mean to her if she never talks to them.

She sits down on one of the new fancy bar stools and spins a little, wincing at the squeaking sound of metal scraping against metal. Why do new things take so long to feel like home? “I…I just wanted to say thanks,” she has a speech prepared and it feels stiff as she says it, “for being patient with me. Things are still kinda weird after everything that’s happened. I guess I’m still adjusting.”

None of it’s a lie, but it’s not in-depth enough to be the full truth either. She still can’t give them that.

“Anything you need, sweetie,” Dad says. Brooklyn raises an eyebrow internally. Anything?

“We’re here for you,” Papa chimes in. He places a bright pink smoothie in front of her- the same shade of her once dyed hair. She’s sticking with her original brown for now, even though she’s spotted the familiar bottles of dye gathered in the bathroom as a subtle hint that she should return to her brand. She’s debating getting colourful again, sure, but with something new and decidedly not Brooklyn TM.

“Um,” Brooklyn draws out the word, twisting it around as she decides how to play this. She could just burst into tears- she certainly feels like doing that all the time lately- but then she’s not actually properly representing herself. “I…I’m not okay.”

When in doubt, she should just go for blunt honesty.

“Oh, Brookie,” Papa puts down his own glass of pink smoothie and reaches across the bench for her. She lets him cover one of her hands with both of his. “Why didn’t you say something earlier?”

“I mean, we knew something was up,” Dad says. “But we were waiting for you to come to us.”

“I’m here now,” Brooklyn says. “I…I need to ask you for something.”

“What is it?”

Brooklyn takes a deep breath and carefully pulls her hand out from underneath papa. Now that she thinks about it, it shouldn’t be a question at all. She may be a kid but when it comes to travel, she’s more experienced than anyone. “I’m going to go see the others for a bit.”

“The others?” Dad’s hands still around the tea towel he’s absently twisting. “As in…”

“My friends,” Brooklyn says. “The ones who were on the island with me.”

Both her dad’s faces dance through some interesting expressions that Brooklyn struggles to interpret.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Papa asks eventually.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Brooklyn says sharply. She’s painfully aware of every moment from her past where they questioned the people she wanted to talk to, the friends she wanted to make.

“You only just got home,” Dad says carefully. He’s always been more careful with his words. Brooklyn assumes it’s because he’s a philosophy professor, and therefor has a need to articulate himself better. Too bad for him- it’s raised a daughter who considers what she says just as meticulously.

“It’s almost been two months,” Brooklyn says. “This is probably the longest I’ve been at home between trips ever.”

“That’s different,” Papa says.

“Why?” Brooklyn challenges. He doesn’t give her an answer. “Seriously, why?”

“Those trips weren’t to a dangerous island, B,” Papa says.

“They were still dangerous,” Brooklyn snaps.

Dad sighs, and leans forward so he’s not towering over her so much. “If you’re struggling with what’s happened, being with reminders of it won’t help you.”

“What are you even saying?” Brooklyn can barely believe her ears. “That’s stupid. I wouldn’t be alive without them! Being with them is the best thing for me.”

“I know you feel that way-”

“It’s the truth,” Brooklyn cuts her dad off. “It’s more than a feeling. It’s what it is. I need to be with them. I can’t do it without them.”

Papa looks angry now. Brooklyn has sat in on some of his classes before and she recognises it as the glare he gives students when he feels they’re being particularly disrespectful. It’s a rare, but not unfamiliar sensation, to have it aimed at her. “What can they offer you that we can’t?” he says. “You don’t think we can help you, Brooklyn? We’re you’re parents. We look after you.”

“No you don’t!” it bursts from her before she can stop it- an eruption of a feeling that’s always been lurking but she’s never dared give a name to. “Once I got famous, you just made me keep working! So you could buy fancy sh*t and do up your f*cking kitchen! I was never allowed to be at home, you were always sending me off. You don’t ever want to be around me, let alone look after me!”

“Brooklyn-”

“I’m going and you can’t stop me,” Brooklyn says. She nearly snakes her hand out to knock over the smoothie glass, but stops herself just in time. She won’t let her anger get the better of her. She saw what it did to her and to the people she loves on the island. She’s furious with her parents right now, but she won’t lash out like that- for her sake and for theirs.

“You can’t!”

“I can.” Brooklyn snaps. “You gave a ten year old constant access to an entire world of airports. I don’t need you to hold my hand through check-in and kiss me goodbye. We’re way past that.”

She thinks she might have tears running down her face but she can’t stop to check. She won’t give them that access to her weaknesses. She’s had a bag packed ever since she got home- hidden away in her massive walk-in wardrobe and fully stocked for a lengthy trip away. She just needs five minutes to gather her stuff, and then she’s gone. She marches away from the kitchen and upstairs, fumbling for her phone as she does. She wants to be mystified by how the situation got so out of hand so fast, but she can’t. The second her dads balked at the idea of her leaving, that was it. Brooklyn couldn’t keep her cool when her chance to see her family was on the line.

It's memes or it’s nothing, Sammy!

Me: Tell me where and when and I’ll be there

Sammy

Headphones in and dusting cloth in hand, Sammy attacks the spare bedrooms of the guest house at the ranch with a gusto she’s been struggling to find ever since touching down in Texas. Seeing her family home again had been yet another tear inducing moment, and so had the huge dinner prepared for that night (that she wasn’t allowed to eat most of, boo) coupled with the revolving door of visiting family and friends that keep filing in. After all the initial excitement had worn off though, Sammy had found herself rather morose- her Abuela’s words, not hers. She’d moped around for weeks, only perking up when she had her phone in her hand as a direct line of contact to her friends. She picked at her food even after being given the go-ahead by a doctor to return to her normal diet, and paced the hallways of the house at night when she couldn’t sleep. Hannah had called her a ghost after catching Sammy standing over her bed once.

Her parents had noticed this behaviour instantly. Sammy is an open book to them, regardless of how many times she’s tried to be deep and mysterious like all the cool girls at school are. Even after a year without seeing her, they read her moods with practised ease. They let it sit for a week- apparently reluctant to over parent her in case she wanted space- before finally giving in and asking her what they could do to help. Sammy had cried, not wanting them to feel like she didn’t love them, but eventually had come clean. She didn’t know what to do without the others, and especially without Yaz. She was doing her best, she’d said. She was sorry it wasn’t good enough.

It was her mum who had asked the question.

“Do they want to come stay at the ranch for a bit?”

Sammy’s tears had been answer enough. There was no reality where she said no to that. Yes, she had cried. A thousand times yes!

The next step had been getting everybody on board. Darius had already brought up a get together- a tentative question that had been pounced upon by everyone instantly, as if they’d ever say no. Thanks to the timing, Sammy was instantly able to offer up the ranch as the perfect hang out location. There’d been some apprehension, but in the end everything had cleared up and now Sammy is deep in preparation plans to make everything perfect for when they arrive.

Thanks to Sammy’s large family and the size of their ranch, there are guest rooms a-plenty. Everyone can have their own space if they choose, but somehow Sammy thinks that won’t be the case. The last good sleep she had was in that cramped hospital room, cuddled up to Yaz and feeling safe in the knowledge that just a few feet away lay the others. She’s setting them up on the guest house so there’s the option of having some privacy, but Sammy fully expects that on the first night they’ll all just drag their mattresses into the small living room and camp out on the floor together for the rest of the trip.

They’re getting one week together. That’s it. Seven days, and even then, it’s barely that. Sammy never counts the fly in and the fly out days as proper ones. So really, it’s just five days. It’s not enough time- not even remotely- but Sammy is trying to be grateful they’ve been given anything at all. She knows from reading between the lines that they’re incredibly lucky to have Kenji, Brooklyn, and Ben joining them, and the fact that everyone’s parents have allowed it to be at the ranch is even more fortunate. These are all things Sammy knows to be thankful for. She just wishes they could have a little more…is that so bad?

She swipes at a particularly stubborn cobweb and then feels bad that she might have ruined a spider’s home.

With her headphones in blasting a playlist Yaz had sent her, Sammy doesn’t hear the door to the guest house open. And she certainly doesn’t hear the sound of footsteps approaching her. Someone- or something- touches Sammy on the shoulder and her heart seizes up in her chest. She acts on pure instinct, whipping the dusting cloth around with the intent to blind whoever has grabbed her, and tensing her legs in preparation to run. The guest house is small and cramped, but that will give Sammy the advantage. The bigger dinosaurs find it hard to chase them through buildings- they slip on the floors and ram into walls. Sammy just has to hope it’s not the blue raptor that’s tracked her down, because then she really is-

“Ow, Sammy, what the hell?!”

Sammy blinks. Her blurred vision- when had that happened- clears and she sees Celia standing there, clutching at her eye. For a second, Sammy’s head spins and her body shakes as she tries to work out what’s going on. Music blares loudly in her ears and blocks her senses, and she reaches up automatically to pull her headphones out. There’s no dinosaur here; she’s not on the island. She’s hurt Celia.

“Shoot,” Sammy says. The word is weak in her mouth. Her heart is pounding. “Celia, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know it was you.”

Celia still hasn’t peeled her hand away from her eye. Sammy feels another jolt of fear- she’d lashed out with the goal of blinding her attacker. Has she…she couldn’t have…

“You hit everyone who sneaks up on you?” Celia snaps. She finally moves her hand away, revealing her eye- a little watery but otherwise normal. She looks on edge, and Sammy can’t blame her.

Sammy blinks again as she processes Celia’s words. “Well…yeah…”

She feels stupid now, and ashamed of herself. She didn’t have to jump so quickly to the assumption that a dinosaur was attacking her.

It’s not your fault you did that, a voice in her head says. It sounds strangely like Darius. It’s a learned behaviour.

It’s a learned behaviour that nearly blinded her sister.

“I’m really sorry,” Sammy says again. “Is your eye okay?”

Celia nods. She still looks a little shaky. “I’m sorry I snuck up on you.”

“Hey, no,” Sammy says. The words bring about a beat of familiarity but she can’t place from where. “You don’t have to apologise. I’m the one who hit you.”

“With a dusting cloth,” Celia says. “Very dangerous stuff.”

Sammy glances down at the cloth hanging innocuously from her hand. During her year on the island she’d learnt that anything could be dangerous if you handled it properly. You can’t think for a second that even in the right hands, an object will do you no harm. If the wielder wishes it, there’s no stopping it from hurting you. And Sammy…Sammy had wished it. She’d been afraid for her life, and afraid for the others. In the moment it didn’t matter who had grabbed her; she wanted them to feel pain.

“I’m sorry,” she says one final time, even though it does nothing to alleviate her guilt. “Really. I won’t do it again.”

She won’t. It’s a promise. If reacting out of fear is a learned behaviour, then she can un-learn it. Maybe the others will even have some tips and tricks when they arrive. Maybe they’re going through the same things she is.

It’s not a comforting thought.

Sammy is aware there’s a state of normalcy she should be returning to. It’s baked into every aspect of her former life at the ranch. Her room belongs to the girl she once was. The photo wall in the entrance hallway features her family with a stranger. Sammy might have it within herself to regain this part of her, but if she does then it’s buried deep down underneath all the trauma- the trauma that’s too heavy to lift up on her own.

Is she putting too much on this visit? Is she expecting the others to show up here and fix her? She doesn’t think she is, but Sammy has just proven exactly why she can’t trust herself and her thoughts at the moment.

“Um,” Celia’s hesitant tone cuts through Sammy’s thoughts- an achievement considering how lost Sammy tends to get in them these days. “Anyway. I came in here to say lunch is ready.”

Sammy thinks of tinned fruit and stale chips and soggy, thawing pizza.

“I’m not hungry,” she says. “I’ll just finish up in here.”

Three days until the others get here. Fifty-six hours. A drop in the ocean of time, and yet maybe the longest Sammy will ever have to wait. She wants to keep busy, and she wants to forget what she’s just done to Celia, and she wants to regain trust in herself. She’s not expecting the others to fix her- she’s not.

“Mum made your favourite,” Celia says, lingering. “There’s heaps.”

Sammy curls her fingers around the dusting cloth. She thinks about a lesson Ben had taught her on the island- pick your battles. Save your energy for the ones that matter; don’t waste it on the ones that don’t.

“Okay,” she says. “I’m coming.”

Ben

On the plane- miles and miles up in the sky- Ben thinks of the last time he’d been rushing above the ground like this. Not of the trip home from Costa Ricca, spent trying and failing to catch some sleep. He’s thinking of the time before that, when the ground had been closer and the seats surrounding him had mostly been empty, and the horrible sound of Pteranodons thumping into the glass had sent shockwaves ricocheting through his body- that old gem of a time. It’s a horrible enough memory that when his mum had finally caved and bought him a ticket to Texas, he’d hovered over her shoulder in a very uncharacteristic way to make sure she didn’t get him a window seat. Ben can’t really remember any other time they had to face any of the flying dinosaurs (or whatever they are) on the island; if they happened at all, well, it’s all clouded over. It’s only the first incident that sticks so harshly in his mind.

He doesn’t like being up in the air with no clear way out- it reminds him exactly of how he’d felt on the boat- but Ben is willing to make sacrifices as long as the thing he’s giving in for is worth it. And, well, there’s no part of himself that he wouldn’t turn over in exchange for the others.

Case in point-

Ben’s freedom teeters on a knife’s edge right now. He’s well aware everyone is surprised by how apparently easily it was for him to get his mum agree to a trip. Once or twice he’s mentioned her helicopter-y hovering, only when pressed for information and never more in-depth than that. Still, it’s enough information that everyone’s gotten the impression that his mum is overinvolved and reluctant to let him out of her sight. Both of these things are true, yes. But what the others are forgetting (or maybe they never knew- Ben correlates privacy with control) is these days Ben likes to have a way out of every situation. He has the physical ways, like a towering tree he can jump into from his window, and he has the mental ways that play out exactly like this situation. His mum doesn’t want him to go, but she also wants him to start seeing doctors and specialists.

In exchange for this trip, Ben has told her he’ll give in.

He’ll let her take him to them all. Doctors and specialists, and even a therapist. He won’t kick up a fuss. He won’t complain. He won’t even bare his teeth in a subtle inference that he’s willing to start biting. It’s a bargaining chip he’s been well aware of, and it’s one he’s kept close to his chest for a moment when he really, really needs it.

Ben really, really needs the others.

He wants to think of himself as a cool loner, sticking it out on his own thanks to his own honed instincts and well-developed strength. But the reality is, deep down Ben just might be the same scared kid who begged and pleaded with his mum not to make him go to Jurassic World. He’s just a little better at hiding it now. But like how in hide and seek, eventually things have to come out. Whether someone finds you, or the game ends, it doesn’t matter. Nothing stays buried. Ben can attest to that- he’s a ghost come back from the dead to haunt a reality he very nearly was torn from. He’s a walking contradiction; he shouldn’t be alive. But he is, and deep below the steely persona Ben is doing his best to cultivate is someone who desperately needs to be with his friends- his family.

Admitting it feels like a weakness, and weaknesses will get you killed on the island. Ben finds it harder and harder to comprehend that he’s not still there. It’s even harder when there’s nobody around to remind him. His mum doesn’t get it- he won’t let her- and so he’s stuck trying to convince himself. Take it from someone who spent years putting himself down; it’s really hard to get your mind to shut up when it gets stuck on something.

Though, sometimes you can get briefly distracted from it by an outside factor. Like the young woman sitting next to him who’s been sneaking him what she probably thinks is discreet looks ever since the flight took off. Ben is aware of his status as some kind of quasi-celebrity, thanks to Brooklyn and her constant (appreciated) messages, but it hasn’t been a problem yet simply because he hasn’t left the house. Now he has, and so now it will be. A problem, that is. It’s just another one of those sacrifices Ben is willing to make for the sake of meeting up with the others.

He's got a little bet going with himself over how long it’ll take for her to start talking to him. Obviously he’s hoping she won’t, but he’s decided just over an hour will be her breaking point. They’re creeping closer and closer to that internal cut off point, and Ben is praying he’ll be wrong.

She draws in a breath, and it looks like he will be. Just in entirely the wrong direction.

“I’m so sorry to ask this,” she says. Lie, Ben thinks. “But you’re really familiar. Are you famous?”

It feels like a trap- things Ben is all too familiar with. He may not be the best at reading people, but he has the awful feeling that she knows exactly who he is. She just wants him to say it so it’ll feel less like an invasion of privacy.

“I dunno,” Ben says flatly. His face tends to fall into a ‘resting dead-eye stare’ when he’s not making an effort to bring some life into it, so that’s the look she gets pinned down with as he reluctantly turns to look at her. “Am I?”

She taps a purposeful finger against her chin. Ben can’t pin down her age- he’s garbage at things like that, but she’s probably eight to ten years older than him. Old enough to know better than to interrogate teenagers, but young enough to be too excited not to.

“You are,” she says. “I’ve seen you somewhere recently.”

“This flight?” Ben deadpans.

She laughs. Ben- a touch unkindly- thinks of shrieking Pteranodons. “No,” she says, as if he was being serious. “Online. I think…”

Ben tenses up every inch of his body. He raises his shoulders and narrows his eyes and tries in every possible way that doesn’t involve him just opening his mouth and saying it to indicate that he’s a threat, he’s dangerous, it’s not worth messing with him.

Unfortunately, she’s as bad as reading people as Ben is. Or maybe she sees it all, and she just doesn’t care.

“You’re on of the Nublar Six!”

Ben almost growls at her. It’s only the thought of who’s waiting at the other end of this flight that stops him. They can’t have a Camp Fam reunion if he’s in custody or something. But-but he has to do something.

Deny? Deflect? Destroy?

“What are you talking about?”

He wants her to falter, to start to wonder if maybe she has made a mistake, but she doesn’t. If anything, her eyes gleam brighter. On the other side of her, the man dozing against the dreaded window seat starts to rouse. Ben feels even more trapped than he already had. The seatbelt around his waist suddenly seems to be tight enough to cut into him.

“You definitely are,” she says. I’ve seen so many pictures. I’d recognise you anywhere.”

Can she recognise him anywhere but here? Please.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” he tries. If she want let him straight up deny who he is, can she at least let him divert this entire conversation. Ben is fighting hard to keep a lid on his composure, but the more effort he expends, the harder it gets. His visions swirls- like it had at the hospital- and for a second, it’s not her in the seat anymore. It’s his worst fear, even greater than Toro. Her beak snaps and her eyes pin him down, and he braces himself for the impact of being pulled through broken glass and out into the open air.

“Can I just ask you one question?” she wheedles. She’s a person in his eyes again, but no less unsettling.

“No,” he says sharply. Surely a human should be easier to reason with than a dinosaur?

He fumbles for the pouch he’s got slung over his shoulder- moved from his waist just this once to make space for the seatbelt. It’s stocked with his usual snacks and flight size appropriate juice boxes and hand sanitiser, but it also has his headphones. It’s one thing to pin someone down with questions, but it’s another thing to do it when they’re actively doing something else. Or at least, he hopes it is.

He has a playlist loaded up on his phone that Yaz has made- she has a wide variety of taste in music thanks to how often she listened to it when she used to go for runs- and he flicks to it desperately, trying to ignore the way his hands shake. His trembling fingers connect the cord to the phone, and he shoves the little buds into his ears. With a definitive press, the music starts up and the noise of the plane and the noise of the woman are drowned out by some band telling him it hoped when he took that jump, he wouldn’t fear the fall.

Ben closes his eyes so he can’t see the woman trying to get his attention, or catch a glimpse of the sky rushing by outside. The band can hope, but it’s in vain.

Of all the things Ben is afraid of now, the fall still scares him the most.

Kenji

Kenji hasn’t flown economy in a long time, which is a weird and privileged thought to have, but it’s the truth. When the flight finally lands, he has to make an effort to unfold his long legs from where they’d been wedged underneath the seat in front of him, and his back protests awfully as he goes to stand. Little aches and pains that are entirely worth it in his eyes. He’d sooner fly with a constant ache in his body all the time if it gets him where he wants to be most, instead of in a luxury cabin that never takes him anywhere that matters. Sure, he could have begged for use of the private jet from his father. But Daniel still hasn’t been around, and Kenji doesn’t want to look a horse in the mouth (or however that saying goes) so he just told one of the staff he was going, and nobody told him he couldn’t. He used his own money to pay for the ticket, and when the website asked him if this would be a return flight, he said no.

This trip Kenji is embarking on doesn’t have an end point. He’s in Texas indefinitely. He hasn’t told the others that yet. He wants it to come up naturally. Or maybe not at all. Maybe he’ll stay on the run forever.

(Dumb thought, but he’s entertaining it)

Kenji's wearing sunglasses and a cap he thinks Brooklyn would call ugly in the hopes that it keeps him anonymous. Apart from a lingering look from the worker who checked his ticket, it seems to be working. The scars that peek out from his clothes and dart across his face probably help as well. Nobody likes to stare at people like that- like him. Kenji isn’t sure what he would actually do if someone did recognise him- he’s never been one to shy away from attention before- so it’s best just to leave that as a mystery.

He joins the growing flood of people shuffling through the centre aisle to get off the plane, eager to break free from the cramped space and hopefully find the exact people he’s coming to see waiting on the other side. None of their flights sync up the best, and Kenji can’t remember if he was due in third or fourth. Or second? Or last? Not first, he thinks. Though actually, he might be. He really can’t remember. He’s just too overwhelmed and excited by the fact that this is happening at all.

It only took them two months to break- for Darius to broach the topic and for Sammy to instantly offer up the ranch. For everyone to slowly but definitively chime in. For dates to be arranged and flights to be booked. For the plans to solidify. It’s barely a week they’ll be together, but it’s better than nothing. Much, much better.

The walk off the plane continues to be agonizingly slow. Kenji aches to just push past everyone and sprint out, but he settles for the awkward half steps he’s forced to make, and fishes around for his phone so he can properly confirm who should have landed in the airport by now, and who’s still yet to touch down. He hasn’t brought any carry on luggage- his bag is somewhere below him right now being unloaded- so it’s easy enough to twist his arm around and pull it out his pocket so he can check the group chat. In the time he’s been offline thanks to airplane mode, Sammy has once again changed the name.

Camp Fam Reunion!!!

Kenji wonders whether he should put his foot down again and pick one of his more…out there ideas, but he decides he likes this one. It gives him a thrill to be reminded of what’s happening. He scrolls back through a flood of messages he’s missed to find the schedule Darius had drawn up- leader that he is.

Dino Nerd: So if all the details you guys sent me are right

Dino Nerd: Ben will land first, then Brooklyn half an hour later. Then me just twenty minutes after that.

Dino Nerd: Then Kenji arrives an hour later. And then Yaz thirty minutes after him

Ranch Girl: And I’m already here!

So Kenji is the fourth to arrive. Second to last, if you will. Which means right now, Darius and Sammy and Ben and Brooklyn are waiting at the gate for him! If this line would just move a little faster then he might even be able to see them the second he steps out. The slowly bubbling impatience lurking inside him starts to threaten to boil over. He cranes his neck, trying to see over the tops of people’s head so he can gauge how close they are to the exit door. It’s not a big plane- just two rows with an aisle down the middle- and Kenji had ended up only about halfway down, so it can’t be much longer. If that person at the front wrestling with their hand luggage in the overhead compartment can just get it free, then they can-

The bag jolts free and the line inches forward with a touch more speed. Kenji does his best to pace himself, he’s not about to start a fight that gets him in trouble because he bumped into someone and they retaliated. Of all the embarrassing things he’s done in front of the others, that has the potential to be the worst.

Inch by inch Kenji gets closer to the door that will let him out. Then he’ll walk up that little passageway and he’ll be in the airport where the others are.

The funny thing about anticipating something is you get all in your head about it happening, and then it actually does and you don’t know what to do. Kenji reaches the door, thanks the flight attendant standing there, and then freezes with one foot still in the plane and one in the corridor that will take him to his friends. Someone bumps into him from behind, clearly not possessing the same reservations Kenji had about running up the back of someone. He mutters and apology and forces himself to move forward. He switches his body to autopilot as best he can, while his mind screams at him in such a confusing barrage that he can’t actually work out what’s being said.

He keeps his eyes on his feet as he walks and uses the repetitive back and forth of his shoes to drown out the noise inside his brain. He doesn’t know why he’s suddenly so scared- is even scared at all? Or has his heart jackrabbited into pumping at a million miles an hour for some other reason?

It’s excitement, you idiot.

That voice in Kenji’s head sounds like Brooklyn and it cuts through the bullsh*t of his mind so quickly and with such authority that he nearly pauses again. Only the special awareness he possesses that tells him that same person is still right up his backside keeps him going. Of course it’s excitement. It just so happens to be the kind of excitement that makes you a bit nauseous as well. His stomach’s churning in anticipation and he wants to slow down and stop again just because everything feels like it’s going a bit fast. It’s been two months- yes- and in reality that doesn’t sound like much time at all. But it is, and in fact it’s more than enough to have him…to have him overthinking this reunion, excited though he is. Brooklyn’s voice had cut through the bullsh*t, but his own voice brings it all back.

Will the others still like him? Has a few months apart given them the time to think that maybe they don’t need him at all? Are they all like Kenji now- putting on a front through the group chat that hides their true feelings?

It’s why he doesn’t want to look up. There’s a part of him- and it’s a part of him that’s always been within him since the very first time his father cast his eyes on him and then purposefully looked away- that worries the others will start to see how unnecessary it is to have him in their lives.

The path he’s on changes ever so slightly as Kenji steps off the portable corridor and onto the solid ground of the airport. He just has to walk a few feet forward and then take a right, and he’ll be walking up that little ramp that leads into the arrivals/departures lounge. It’s another unfamiliar trip for him- flying around on a private jet means private airports and being chauffeured everywhere- but Kenji is used to the unknown now. He did his best to make it his bread and butter during his time on Nublar. Of course, he wasn’t able to adapt on his own.

Breathing in the air that tastes so different from that of the stale airplane oxygen, Kenji finally looks up. As if fate herself wishes to tell him that he’s found his people and he won’t be losing them, his eyes instantly fall on a group hanging over the edge of the barrier that keeps the public from running around and causing a muck. Even with that restraint in place, these people are waving their hands and calling for him, and one of them is even waving a huge sign painted in what looks like glitter.

CAMP FAM REUNION

It’s Sammy, and Darius, and Ben, and Brooklyn. And in a few seconds it will be Kenji as well.

Oh, Kenji thinks. His feet gain a life of their own and speed him towards them, gaining in pace with every step he takes. Oh, that was what was really wrong. I didn’t have them. And now I do.

The world clicks into place, and Kenji breaks into a run.

Darius

When Sammy tackles the Darius the second he properly steps into the airport, for a few fearful seconds he’s back on the island under attack from a dinosaur. Then clarity kicks in- thanks mostly to Sammy’s excited chattering- and Darius adjusts his reality back to what it is. He clings to Sammy just as tightly as she clings to him, and feels a sense of peace settle in his chest where previously, there had only been unrest. The feeling multiplies into something even stronger as Brooklyn joins the hug, crowing up in Darius’ space but leaving a line of sight open for him to see Ben hovering close by and watching. Darius surrenders to the hugs and lets Sammy almost lift him off the ground in her joy. If Darius was any stronger, he’d probably try to do the same.

He feels a dark cloud that’s been hovering over him move aside, and for a moment all is almost right with the world. Almost being the key word, because their family isn’t complete just yet. They’re still waiting for Kenji and Yaz to land. When that happens, Darius thinks he’ll be so overjoyed that nothing could bring him down. This is what he’s been missing for the past two months, and why it’s been so hard for him to adjust back to normal life. He breathes a little easier with them close by, and he knows in an instant that these are the people he wants to grow old with- not just through the internet but by their side. He thinks he’s always known it, deep down, a conclusion he came to once on the island. It’s another thing to confirm it though. He needed to leave them to realise it.

“I missed you guys,” he says, when Sammy and Brooklyn finally step back. Ben sneaks in for a quick arm around his shoulder before darting away again. “So, so much.”

From the looks on all their faces, it’s a sentiment they all share.

Without trying to make it look too obvious, Darius looks the others up and down. It’s almost weird to see them in clothes that aren’t the outfits they’d been restricted to on Isla Nublar. Sammy wears a plaid button and jeans up that scream ‘I work on a ranch’ while Brooklyn is wearing a white tank top and denim shorts- no pink in sight, not even in her hair. Ben’s stuck with the headband look but it’s now just an ordinary strip of cloth instead of the remains of his shirt, and he’s covering a lot of his skin with an oversized grey hoodie. Beyond the clothes, Darius sees the same eye-bags under their eyes that he shares, though Ben’s in particular look borderline painful. It’s only been two months, so their bones still stand out against their skin, but if Darius was a betting man he’d say no weight has been put on in an attempt to fix this. If they’re like him, then their stagnating. Brooklyn’s exposed arms showcase her still healing scars, and Darius can pick out a dozen more like them spread between what little skin Sammy and Ben are showing. The joy at seeing him fights to combat the haunted looks that sometimes dart across their faces.

Darius feels eyes on him and blinks. He looks up to see Brooklyn staring at him with the same intensity that he’s been using to stare at her. He should have expected it. He’s not the only one worried here, of course. While he checks them out, they’re returning the favour. He wonders what they’re noticing in particular about him. The hollowness of his face? The long sleeves he’s wrapped himself in? The fresh cut along his chin from where he’d accidentally scratched open an old one?

“Good flight?” Brooklyn asks. Her voice sounds so familiar and yet strange- like two months of separation has made all the difference in the world and Darius can’t recognise her anymore.

“It was okay,” Darius says. He doesn’t mind flying that much, but the anticipation to see who was waiting for him at the end had made every second drag. “You?”

“Pretty boring,” Brooklyn says. “The brown hair is working wonders, nobody recognised me.”

“Lucky,” Ben says morosely. Darius turns inquisitive eyes on him. “Lady on my flight picked me as one of the ‘Nublar Six’ and wouldn’t leave me alone.” He makes air quotations around their media nickname, the disdain clear in his voice and his face and his eyes.

Darius stiffens up at the reminder of their current status in the media, and turns a careful circle as he tries to pick out any onlookers of their reunion. He wants this to be the most perfect week ever- in fact he needs it to be the most perfect week because life has kind of been killing him these past two months- and being spied on by the public does not signal a great start in his eyes. Airports are a place where people tend to be rushing around to make flights or get home, but they also have a status of a place where famous people could appear out of anywhere. Darius doesn’t consider what they’ve done (survive) to be worthy of fame, but he doesn’t actually have a voice in this. If he did, he would have used it already.

Fortunately it seems their little huddle is going ignored for now, probably because there’s a whole bunch of other reunions going on around them as the rest of Darius’ flight slowly empties and people pick out their friends and family in the crowd. He’s glad for the brief moment of respite, though he’s not sure how long it will last. There’s an hour now until Kenji’s plane lands- plenty of time to be picked out of a crowd.

“Y’all, I am so excited to have you here!” Sammy draws Darius’ attention back to them- these three people he loves so deeply, soon to be joined by two more. “Can you believe we’re gonna get to spend time together hanging out without having to worry about dinosaurs?”

Honestly, sometimes Darius can’t. He keeps having to pinch himself, sometimes half terrified he’s experiencing the world’s longest death hallucination as he gets pulled into the mouth of the T-Rex or something.

“This is gonna be the best week ever,” Brooklyn says, determined as always. Darius tries not to read into the hint of desperation he hears in her voice. Something’s not quite right with the way Brooklyn’s been able to get out here, but the one or two times Darius tried to bring it up, she changed the subject.

“Do you need us to help out around the ranch at all?” Darius asks. He thinks of his bag, and the pile of gifts his mum had given him to pass on as thanks for housing him.

“Nah, not at all,” Sammy says. “We’re doing really well at the moment. I’m not really needed.”

There’s an uncomfortable pause as everyone- including Sammy- registers her words.

“Oh, not like that,” Sammy rushes to say. “I mean, because of the lawsuit, we’ve been able to hire a lot of people and expand the business, and I guess that’s my way of helping because if I hadn’t…well…you know.”

There’s another awkward silence. Darius tries to think of a way to fix it, and finds himself coming up short. It makes him feel out of sync with himself, and with the leader they (and himself) except him to be. He hopes it’s just cause they’ve been apart for a bit, and that he’ll slip back into it in the next few days.

You know you don’t have to be the leader anymore, right?

He pushes the voice to the side and focuses in on forcing himself to find some way to change the subject.

“Are you parents around?” he asks Sammy. He sees the relief in both Sammy and Brooklyn’s eyes at the question. Ben is scanning the surroundings, so Darius can’t see what he looks like.

“They’ve gone to get a coffee,” Sammy says. “They thought we might like a bit of time to catch up on our own before they meet you. They’re super excited to though!”

“They sound really nice,” Brooklyn says. Again, there’s that hint to her tone that suggests something isn’t quite right. “We should make dinner one night.”

“Camp fam cooking show,” Sammy jokes.

“Hope they like tinned fruit and cold pizza,” Ben says. “Our specialities.”

“Don’t forget the berries,” Darius chimes in. The bugs go unmentioned.

“I’ll have you know I’ve worked with world class chefs on videos,” Brooklyn says. “I can cook your parents the best food they’ve ever eaten.”

Awkwardness averted for now. Darius breathes a sigh of relief that comes so easily now that he’s back with his friends.

“Should we get my bag?” he asks. “Before it gets stolen.”

“Oh shoot, good idea!” Sammy cries. “I knew I was forgetting something. Sorry, Darius. I just got so excited to see you.”

“It’s okay,” he says. I’m excited to see you too.

“We can find out what gate Kenji’s flight is due in at on the way,” Ben says. His ever-watchful eyes scan upwards for a flight directory board.

It’s a bit of an awkward walk through the airport thanks to how close they want to walk next to each other, and because of Ben and Brooklyn’s bags, but eventually they make it to the baggage carousel. Thankfully it seems there was a delay of sorts, because there’s still heaps of people gathered around, allowing the teens to blend into the crowd as they keep an eye out for Darius’ simple black suitcase with the dinosaur luggage tags Brand had gotten him as a birthday present a few years ago.

Darius pinches himself again as he waits, still sort of unable to comprehend that this is real, that they’re back together, that the distance between them hasn’t broken them yet.

“Darius, is that your bag?” Ben asks. He’s spotted the suitcase in question.

Darius laughs, because he hasn’t told the others what it looks like, but they know him so well and so it’s entirely obvious that the bag with the dinosaur tags is his. How lucky he is, to be seen by them.

How lucky he is that for a second, with them at his side, he feels like himself again.

Yaz

Being the last to arrive sucks. Yaz hates it. She hates it so much that she has an entirely miserable flight that has the people next to her shooting her annoyed glares as she jiggles her leg and fidgets with her switched off phone and taps her fingers against the tray table. She’s annoyed that she wasn’t able to make an earlier time work, and she keeps having this reoccurring thought that they’ll all have left by the time Yaz lands. It’s a little uncharacteristic of her to think like this, which is what makes her so worried. If it’s occurred to her in a way that usually doesn’t happen, does this mean there’s some truth to it?

She tries to distract herself with the book she’s brought along, something Ben had recommended highly. She does find the story engaging and does her best to follow along with it, but her mind refuses to let this fear go. It’s literally just half an hour between Kenji landing and then her and yet…well…it’s like this. The way things are organised means Yaz is last. She’s last. Yaz has never been last in her entire life, not from the second she’d stepped out onto the track at a little athletes meet her mum had brought her to. She hasn’t always placed, but she’s never been last. The fact that it’s out of her hands should make it an easier fact to swallow.

It doesn’t.

To try and calm herself, Yaz puts the book away and pulls her phone out. It’s on flight mode, but that doesn’t mean she can’t look at photos and old messages. She’s slowly adding pictures to an album called Camp Fam- screenshots of funny text conversations and actual images of the campers. Yaz is trying to create an equal balance of content between everyone, but it seems the bias has crept in because when she starts to flick through it, she can see it’s mostly things Sammy sends.

They’re having a go at long distance. At least, Yaz thinks that’s what they’re doing. Neither one of them had actually suggested it- they’d been pulled apart so hastily in the hospital. But they haven’t mentioned breaking up, and Sammy keeps sending cute little check in messages that Yaz eagerly responds to, so it feels like they’re still a couple. They just happen to be one pulled apart at the seams. The distance between her and the others is agony, and in Sammy’s case, it’s simply unbearable. Yaz’s bed feels too empty and that shouldn’t even be possible because she still sleeps in a single, where there’s barely enough room for her. She supposes because it’s bigger than her makeshift mattress on the island- that Sammy shared with her- that has left it feeling so empty.

Every part of Yaz feels empty. She never thought she’d be the kind of person to put so much of herself into a relationship. She used to roll her eyes at the girls on the track team when they mourned being away from their boyfriends overnight, or had tearful reunions in the school halls even though they’d seen each other less than twenty-four hours ago. Now every second away from Sammy feels like she can compare it to a knife in her hear- or a dinosaur claw through her stomach.

Maybe she’s allowed to be this miserable without Sammy though. They literally hadn’t spent a day apart in over a year until now, and their relationship was forged during a constant-death situation. They relied on each other for much more than just companionship. They kept each other alive, so that’s why Yaz feels like she’s dying now that they’re apart.

Well, it’s not for much longer. Because the plane is about to land, and no matter what Yaz’s brain is trying to tell her, she knows they haven’t just left without her. None of them would do that to her, just like she will never do it to them. They trust each other now, more than anyone else in the whole world. Long gone are the days of Yaz’s reluctance to make friends- she has a new family now. One she’s about to be reunited with.

Determined not to let anything slow her down for a second- a typical Yaz trait- had Yaz ensuring her seat was right at the front of the plane for optimal departing the moment they touched down. She braces against the arms of her chair as they bump into the tarmac a touch more violently than she would have like, and then springs up the second the seatbelt sign flashes off. She has a shoulder bag with her but that’s it, and she kept it under the seat in front of her so she doesn’t need to waste any time rooting around in the overhead locker. She taps her foot impatiently as the cabin crew bustle around. Yaz never used to like running relay races- she hated having to rely on other people to add to her speed.

She turns off flight mode on her phone as she waits and opens the group chat. There aren’t as many messages as she thought waiting for her. Only Brooklyn had sent a customary ‘landed safe’ text and then Sammy had answered with a smiley face emoji. Then there’s a photo of a suitcase that has to be Darius’ because the camera is mostly catching the dinosaur luggage tags, and an accompanying message from Kenji reading ‘you’ll never guess whose bag this is’. Then Darius had created an unimpressed face out of various dashes in response. So barely anything, but it’s enough for Yaz to look through as the plane prepares to let its passengers off. She looks up to see the few rows in front of her starting to file out and darts out the moment it’s her turn.

Yaz thanks the crew on autopilot (hah) as she puts on as much of a burst of speed as she can in the cramped surroundings and with her ankle still in its recovery process, though thankfully no longer bound to a cast. She half ways/half limps her way through the corridor the plane deposits her into, eyes craning all the while in search of the others. The corridor eventually opens up into the airport, and from there it only takes Yaz a few seconds to pick out her friends in the crowd.

There they are.

The five of them are pressed as close as they can be. Kenji is holding a sign and waving it around for her. Brooklyn is waving- up on her tiptoes to increase her height. Darius and Ben join in with her, all four of them helping to gain her attention. And then there’s Sammy.

Yaz can’t help it. Her ankle complains but she’s damaged it before over much less important things. She breaks into a run, pushes through the little barrier set up to stop passengers from trying to get on their flights early, and flings herself in the wide-open arms of her girlfriend. Yaz isn’t big on PDA but this is the perfect moment to make an exception. She cradles Sammy’s face in her hands and they both lean in at the same time and it’s almost a bit of movie magic as their lips meet and they kiss.

Kenji’s wolf whistling quickly makes Yaz break away, but she’s grinning in a way she rarely does and her cheeks feel very red.

“You made it,” Sammy says. She looks as overjoyed as Yaz feels. “We all made it!”

They did, and now everything feels right in the world again. The little part of Yaz that had felt disjointed clicks itself back into place. It’s almost like she’s getting her balance back or something. Her shoulders relax, and she stands a little straight.

“Camp fam reunion holiday, here we come,” Brooklyn says. She’s been hanging back to let Yaz and Sammy have their moment, but now she comes forward to wrap Yaz in a brief but appreciated hug. “Good to see you.”

“Understatement,” Yaz corrects. “f*cking amazing to see you.”

She means it too, obviously. There are no words in the entirety of ever language on earth that can let the others know just how glad Yaz is to be with them. She can only hope it’s the same for them, because then they’ll know exactly how she feels.

“We lasted two months,” Ben says wryly. He comes forward to drape an arm over Yaz’s shoulder in a half hug that he quickly steps away from to let Kenji and Darius take his place.

“That’s longer than I thought,” Yaz admits as she accepts the hugs from the other boys.

I was ready to come find you guys an hour after we left.

“I would have suggested it sooner,” Darius says. “But I figured we’d been gone from our families so long…”

“We had,” Yaz says. She’s not just talking about her mum and dad though.

Sammy slips her hand into Yaz’s and gives it a squeeze. A thrill runs through Yaz, and she feels even lighter, if that is at all possible after already throwing a weight free when she’d burst into the airport and first seen the others.

I’m going to make this work, she tells herself firmly. Me and Sammy. Just because Yaz can’t run the way she used to doesn’t suddenly make her a quitter.

“Come on,” Sammy says. “Let’s go get your bag and get outta here. My parents are dying to meet y’all, and I wanna get home and show you around.”

It’s early afternoon- quickly becoming late- and Yaz can’t wait to throw her suitcase down and flop down somewhere with the others and just breathe.

“I missed this,” she says quietly as Sammy starts to tug her along. She can tell the others are hanging back a bit to give the couple their space. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” Sammy replies instantly. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

Last to arrive, yes, but Yaz is here now. They’re a complete group once again. They might not have that much time together, but she’s determined to make the most of it. She’ll cram a year’s worth of catching up into the week if she has to. They’ll do ordinary things they couldn’t do on the island, and just be normal kids.

And the most important part of all will be the fact that they’re together.

The holiday has barely started and already Yaz never wants it to end.

Chapter 12: To search for my long ago forgotten friends

Chapter Text

In just a few short minutes, the living room of the guest house becomes a bedroom- home to two double bed mattresses and two single bed ones. As Sammy had predicted, the group had chosen the option to be together instead of splitting off into separate areas. Despite the ease with which they had done the moving, everyone wordlessly flops down on the beds as if they are burdened by a bone deep exhaustion. The thing is, they are. It just hasn’t come about from shuffling furniture- it’s a cumulative thing after a year spent running for their lives, and then two months of trying to recover from it on their own.

Needless to say, it hasn’t worked.

Actually, none of them say anything about it at all. They lay silently, staring up at the low roof of the guest house that hovers almost oppressively over them. Even Sammy- who has spent many a night bunking out between its walls- has to admit that the ceiling feels like it’s a few inches away from falling. Like maybe it was on its way down before the rest of the house got in the way and kept it up.

“So…” Brooklyn draws at the word for as long as she can. Her voice drifts around the others, a subtle reminder that they’ve made it back to each other despite the best efforts of the world. “What should we do?”

It’s a holiday, right? That’s what they’ve called it in messages, in conversations with their families, even to themselves when thinking about it. Holidays mean fun, they mean adventures! They don’t mean lying around in dead silence.

“We have some board games in a cupboard,” Sammy offers. “Or we could go for a walk. I could show you around.”

“Can we meet your cows?” Darius rolls over to look at Sammy.

“I’ve had enough of large animals for a lifetime,” says Kenji, though it’s more of a moan.

“Trust me,” says Sammy. “After you’ve been around dinosaurs for a year, cows seem small. Relatively speaking. Plus we have heaps of other animals. Horses. Chickens. Dogs. Barn cats. I think my sister got some goats while I was gone. Still haven’t actually seen them but apparently they’re around.”

It’s the best idea that’s been offered so far, so by wordless agreement they decide that’s what they’ll do. They’ve fallen back into old traditions- little signals and nods that get the point across if they can’t actually speak. All Sammy has to do is look pointedly at Kenji’s flip flops, and he’s trundling off to dig a pair of sneakers out his suitcase. Darius frowns at the scars scattered across Ben’s face and Ben obligingly produces a hat and some sunscreen from his own bag. It’s just a little thing, but it's proof that separation hasn’t killed the relationship they’d formed on the island. Not yet anyhow.

The sun is just starting to sink over the horizon as they troop outside for the grand tour. Sammy’s property spreads out for further than they can see, but she says they’ll save heading out on the tractor for a better look for another day. Instead, she leads them to various close by paddocks that offer encounters with most of the animals she’d promised. They find the chickens first- there’s at least three dozen of the birds- and Sammy points out some of the ones with more creative names. She blushes when she says they just got a new one she decided to call Yaz, while Yaz looks torn between being offended and finding it romantic.

“I wanted a reminder of you,” Sammy says, face red.

Yaz’s cheeks turn a similar shade, and she presses a quick kiss to the back of Sammy’s hand.

“I for one am offended you haven’t named a chicken after me,” Kenji says.

“I’m not,” says Ben.

Then it’s his turn to get all emotional when Sammy shyly admits that they had a new foal born the other day and she’s named it Bumpy. Ben pretends he doesn’t look like he’s about to cry, and everyone lets him. There’s a fragility to their reunion that they haven’t touched upon yet. A wave of emotions just waiting to crash down on them, only they’ve built up walls in the two months they’ve been apart, so it can’t break through it. A foal named Bumpy is a drop of water barely able to get past, but it’s only the start of something that will come much, much later.

They find the horses next so they can meet this new baby Bumpy. They can’t really see her without going into the paddock- which Sammy says can be a bad idea if you haven’t been around territorial mothers before- so they stand on the fence and do their best to peer into the stables where she’s supposedly sleeping. A few other horses mill around, shooting the former campers suspicious looks for daring to encroach on their territory without offering any food in return.

“Can we ride them?” Brooklyn asks. “I’ve done it before and I loved it.”

“Sure,” Sammy says. “We have some pretty tame ones who haven’t just had babies, so we can go out on a trek.”

They stay with the horses for a while as the sun sets lower and lower. The sky is awash in gorgeous pinks and oranges that bleed together into an entirely new colour that nobody can name. It’s as silent as it had been in the guest house- everyone just drinking in the fresh air and the lack of apex predators and the being around each other again. A tentative peace builds up as they stand and watch the world make its changes from day to night.

“This is heaven,” Brooklyn says finally. “Seriously, Sammy, thanks for having us.”

“Anytime,” Sammy says. There’s an edge to her voice that suggests she’s not just saying it as an automatic politeness. If they asked, she’d probably move them in on the spot.

“Anyone got their phone?” Kenji asks. “We should take a picture. We-uh-don’t really have any of the six of us.”

“No,” Yaz says slowly, like she’s only just now realising it. She glances at Sammy. “We don’t, do we?”

“That’s what this holiday is for,” Darius says. “So we can fix stuff like that.”

“So we can fix stuff like us?” Ben says. An awkward pause fills the air after he speaks. Suddenly nobody can seem to look each other in the eye. For the most part, Ben seems to regret the words. He pulls at face aimed at himself and shrugs helplessly.

“We’re not broken,” Brooklyn says finally. She pulls her sparkling new phone out of her pocket, grimaces at something on the screen, and then opens to the camera. She pivots into the classic selfie position and starts adjusting her grip to fit them all into the frame. “Maybe just a little messed up. But we’re together now. That counts for something. Smile.”

Everyone obligingly does and Brooklyn catches the moment with ease.

“The first of many,” she says with satisfaction.

With barely any light remaining, Sammy suggests they head back in for dinner at the main house. It’ll be their first real time meeting Sammy’s family, apart from her parents who had picked them up from the airport in their minivan- clearly excited to meet Sammy’s friends but restrained to the point that nobody could actually say accurately what they were truly like. Apparently there’d been some sort of agreement made before the others had arrived to give them all some space for the first afternoon. It’s not unappreciated, but it’s delayed a meeting that makes a lot of them- especially Yaz- nervous.

“Should we change for dinner?” Yaz asks. She’s dressed in jeans and a jacket that are such a far cry from her usual exercise gear, but everyone understands why and hasn’t said anything about it.

“Nah, it ain’t fancy,” Sammy says. “We’re real casual here. I think it’d be weirder if you did try to dress up.”

With that settled, they wander back to where the lights of the main house glow through the ever-creeping darkness. Even with what Sammy has said, Yaz fidgets with her jacket and smooths down her hair. Brooklyn hangs back to nudge a reassuring shoulder into her side.

“They’re gonna love you,” she says. “Sammy does, so they will too.”

Yaz shoots her a nervous look. “We haven’t actually said that word yet,” she says.

“Doesn’t mean you don’t feel it,” Brooklyn says. “Relax, Yaz. We’re together. Nothing can go wrong.”

Yaz wisely chooses not to point out that a lot of things went wrong when they were together- like the whole being left behind on the island in the first place- because she knows that’s not what Brooklyn means. Still, it’s hard to just believe that everything will be okay. Yaz has seen countless proof to the contrary. It’s a key difference between her and Sammy- her a mix between pessimistic and realistic, while Sammy lies purely in the optimist camp.

When they get to the farmhouse- as Sammy calls it- Sammy leads them through the backdoor and into one of the biggest kitchens any of them have ever seen; even Kenji and Brooklyn with their rich families and globetrotting adventures seem taken aback. There are rows of bench space that wrap around to create a cave of sorts- with a huge stove top, a gaping oven, and a microwave easily able to fit in amongst them. There are cupboards everywhere, painted with little items that are either just there for decoration or actually detail what’s inside them. A door built into a wall is labelled pantry in neat handwriting, and there’s a massive fridge looming over the room beside it. It’s an open space area, so the kitchen flows naturally into the dining room where a large table is being set by two girls who look like smaller version of Sammy.

“This is the kitchen,” Sammy says, almost shyly. “I know it’s not much-”

“Sammy, this is amazing!” Brooklyn cries. “It’s huge.”

“Well, gotta fit everyone in,” Sammy says, but she seems pleased. “Come sit down. I’d like you guys to meet my sisters. This is Hannah, and this is Celia.”

The campers hesitate, as if they’re about to go face down a pack of raptors and not Sammy’s sisters. Somewhat reassuringly, the sisters seem just as apprehensive. The two sides eye each other warily as Sammy stands between them.

It’s Darius who breaks the silence. He offers a warm smile and holds out his hand. “I’m Darius,” he says. “Nice to meet you.”

With the leader making the first step, the others fall obligingly into step behind him.

“I’m Kenji,” says Kenji.

“My name’s Brooklyn.”

“Ben.”

“And this,” Sammy says, taking a step closer to Yaz so they’re pressed up against each other. “Is Yaz. We’re dating.”

The older looking girl- Celia?- rolls her eyes. “We know,” she says, revealing the same southern drawl that Sammy has. “You’ve told us like, every day.”

“You’re just jealous I’m dating a super cool track star and you’re not,” Sammy pokes her tongue out. Yaz opens her mouth, and then closes it.

“Ew, no I’m not,” Celia says. “I’m never dating anyone. Kissing is gross.”

Privately, Ben agrees.

“I know who you are too,” Celia turns to Brooklyn. “I like your videos. How come you’re not posting even though you’re back?”

Brooklyn gives a nervous laugh. “No ideas, I guess. Um…yeah, just working on stuff.”

“Cool.”

Hannah- the younger- still hasn’t stopped staring at the campers with wide, almost terrified eyes. Her hands are frozen around the bundle of forks she’s holding.

“Why do you look like that?” she asks suddenly. Kenji almost jumps as she pinpoints them with a half confused, half nervous look. “Your faces…”

Right. Their faces.

“Um…” Darius reaches a hand up to brush against one of his scars. It’s not anywhere near as bad as some of the other ones they’ve picked up- like Sammy’s three perfect puncture marks, or the large wounds that mar Ben’s shoulders like they’re the remains of wings- but it’s on his face, and so it stands out. He’s never put much thought into it, nor has he done the same for the other scars that are scattered across everyone else’s features. A slice through an eyebrow, or a cut down a cheek hardly seemed worthy of fussing. But to a stranger, it must be a different pill to swallow. In fact, the tiny cuts and slashes that seem so insignificant to them may perhaps be the things that shock outsiders the most.

“Hannah,” Sammy scolds, before Darius can think of a reply. “That’s not nice. Apologise.”

“But they’re all cut up,” Hannah says indignantly.

“So am I, and you never said anything about it.”

“Because you didn’t say anything about it first.”

“Is this a fight? Are we fighting?”

“No, you’re just being stupid.”

“Girls!” a woman walks into the kitchen- one who is now familiar to all the campers thanks to her presence at the airport. This is Sammy’s mum- a tall and sturdy looking woman who had lifted everyone’s suitcases with ease, and who had easily bumped her husband out of the way when he’d gone to get in the driver’s seat of their van. Her enthusiasm had been clear, but sedated. She’d asked after names but contained herself when it came time to ask about the obvious elephant in the room- the dinosaur in the minivan, if you will.

“Sammy’s trying to tell me off,” Hannah says instantly. She shoots reproachful eyes at the campers.

“She’s being rude,” Sammy shoots back. “It’s not nice to talk about people’s scars, Han.”

The five non-Gutierrez’s shift uncomfortably at the back and forth. It’s far cry from the drama that would have come about if they had gone to Kenji’s perhaps, or Brooklyn’s, but it’s still a bit awkward. Nobody has actually said it yet, but it’s clear none of them have really been going outside since they got home. Barely anybody around them has brought up how different and damaged they look. Now someone has, but there’s no way to snap back about it. It’s Sammy sister- she doesn’t deserve a Nublar Six stare down.

“It’s okay,” Ben says suddenly. The others shoot him surprised looks. Of all the people to deescalate a situation, it’s rarely- if ever- Ben. “We do look a little weird. Sometimes you just gotta point it out and move on. So, Hannah, are you ready to move on?”

He fixes her with intense eyes. The dappled scars of sunburn and dinosaur claws paint his face far more than any of the others. Jungle Boy, through and through. Hannah meets his gaze for a second, before she looks away.

“I’m ready,” she says. “Sorry.”

“Aw, it’s okay,” Sammy says, quick as always to forgive. “You can’t help being curious. Maybe just don’t blurt it out like that next time.”

Sammy’s mum ruffles a hand through Hannah’s hair, and then moves over to do the same to Sammy. She starts to herd up the kids and teens like the ranch owner she is, and gets them sitting down at the table.

“I bet you’re all hungry,” she says, darting into the kitchen and pulling open the oven door to release a cloud of steam. “Michael’s around somewhere, he’ll be here in a tick, I’m sure. Hope you all like roast chicken. I wanted to do something fancier but Sammy said simple is best.”

“That’s lovely, thank you, Mrs Gutierrez,” Yaz says. She sits primly in her chair, tense.

“Call me Mel, please.”

Yaz shoots a questioning look at Sammy who nods reassuringly. She relaxes somewhat, but there’s still a hint of something in the air. It’s strange to be at the ranch- to exist in this space that Sammy had been driven to such extreme measures for. It’s proof that Sammy’s fight had been worth it, but it’s also a reminder that not many of them have something like this to be so devoted to. Watching Mrs Gutierrez- Mel- bustle about, joined soon by her husband who moves around her in an elegant dance to conjure a jug of gravy, a dish of vegetables, a pitcher of cordial, well…it certainly is different than what most of them know.

When they’re finally all seated around the table- the weight of the food seemingly causing the poor wood to groan, though Sammy says this is a light meal in comparison to other dinners they have- Mel asks that everyone go around and say something they were grateful for before they ate.

“It’s just a little something I like to do,” she says. “Why wait till only one time of the year to be thankful? I’ll go first. I’m really thankful y’all could come visit my daughter and cheer her up. She’s been moping around like crazy without you.”

“Mum,” Sammy groans, but she’s hiding a smile behind her hands. “You’re embarrassing me.”

“I’m thankful we still have Sammy around to embarrass her,” Sammy’s dad- Michael- says. It’s an abruptly sobering moment that brings about a beat of silence as everyone becomes sharply aware of just how lucky they are to be sitting here at all.

“I’m thankful we have enough chairs,” Sammy breaks the tension. Unshed tears water in her eyes, although she’s still smiling brightly. “To fit you all around the table.”

I’m glad you can all be here in my life.

“I’m thankful I can be here,” Yaz says, a touch shyly. She glances out from behind her hair to look first at Sammy, and then at her parents. Her cheeks are the same bright red they’ve mostly been ever since she landed at the airport and reunited with Sammy. “Um…your daughter is amazing. Okay, that’s it. Someone else go.”

Brooklyn is sitting next to Yaz, they’ve ended up around the table as girls next to boys by complete accident, and she jumps in quickly before Yaz can get any more scarlet. “I’m thankful to be here as well,” she says. “I know we’re all saying it, but it’s true. Thank you so much for letting us stay here.”

“Anytime,” Mel says. She sounds completely serious. Kenji shifts, and takes a long drink of water, carefully not looking anybody in the eye.

“I think we might be all saying the same thing,” says Darius, who’s next in the circle they’re following. He gives a little laugh. “Being here. That’s what I’m thankful for.”

Not just the ranch, but in general. Surviving the island. Making it out. Returning home with everyone in one piece. Nobody being left behind.

“Same,” Ben says. “Being-uh-thankful for being here, I mean.”

“Uh, yeah, me too,” Kenji says. “It’s super cool to put us all up, thanks so much. I…I don’t know many people who’d do that.”

Sometimes words aren’t enough for what you truly feel. In this instance, it’s entirely that. Nothing the campers can say will properly convey how truly grateful they are that they can be together right now, safe and secure and out of the public eye. Away from hovering parents, or those who don’t hover at all. Sleeping in the same room, next to each other again just like they had done for a year. It’s not an entire return to their former norm, of course. There aren’t any dinosaurs around to do that. But there’s a vast open space on their doorstep, and fresh air blowing as a gentle breeze across the land. There’s a place for them to go at the end of a long day, content in the knowledge they’ll wake up together. There simply aren’t any words.

“I’m glad you made roast chicken,” Hannah says. “We haven’t had it in ages.”

Sammy laughs, and Celia rolls her eyes and says she’s thankful that it’s about to be school holidays, and then they all dig in.

Dinner is mostly quiet after all the talking they did beforehand. The campers shoot each other looks as they eat, as if they’re reminding themselves over and over again that they’ve made it back to each other. Whenever Mel and Michael ask the teens a question, it’s about normal things like hobbies and interests. Not once are they asked to even think about the island. It’s there- of course- because it’s still lingering over all of them, but it’s also just incredibly freeing to be interrogated over their favourite movies instead of the dinosaur least likely to pose a threat.

Once or twice, Hannah and Celia open their mouths to seemingly break this rule, but Mel fixes them with a sharp look before they can.

“We can do the dishes,” Darius says once the plates have been wiped clean, and there are no leftovers in sight. They’re stuffed full of good food- dinner and dessert, which had been a chocolate self-sourcing pudding Michael had made.

“You’re guests,” Mel says. “I-”

“We will,” Sammy cuts her mum off. “It’s the least we can do. You’re feeding us and letting them stay here and…”

Dishes are barely a drop in the ocean of gratitude, but it’s better than nothing.

Mel’s face softens. “Okay,” she says. “Just for tonight.”

It’s a battle they’ll fight with Sammy’s parents at every meal for the remainder of the holiday.

Later that night, when true darkness has swept across the land, and every dish has been washed and rinsed and dried and put away, the Camp Fam sinks down in the pile of mattresses they’d made earlier. It’s hot outside, but Sammy has turned the air conditioner on to bathe them in a breeze.

“I don’t like the heat much anymore,” she says, speaking more to the ceiling than the others. “Reminds me of…”

Of Isla Nublar- of hot and sweaty conditions that kept the sweat dripping constantly and stuck their clothes to them.

“Bad news, huh?” she laughs a little. “Considering where I live.”

“It’s a little different, isn’t it?” Ben asks slowly. “Dry heat versus humidity.”

“Try telling my body that.”

Ben nods. He’s all too familiar with a body not behaving the way you hope it will.

“It won’t be too cold for y’all, will it?” Sammy worries. The others are quick to reassure her it’s fine.

“Can we…can we maybe keep a light on as well?” Yaz asks. “So-uh-we can find our way to the bathroom in the dark.”

It’s obviously much more than that, and it’s a little unsettling that they’re already censoring themselves to save face, but everyone accepts the excuse. Sammy turns on a hallway light that will brush the edges of the living room with a soft glow, but otherwise leaves them in relative darkness. On her way back to the beds, she turns off everything else and lets the shadows curl over them. It’s a signifier that it’s time to go to bed, but none of them are tired yet- at least, not in that way. They’re not dressed for sleep either, still all in the clothes they’d worn on the planes to get here.

Nobody moves though. Nobody gets up to go change or brush their teeth. They keep lying down- the six of them recreating the kind of night they’d survived through for a year, only with nicer beds and stronger shelter. The walls they’ve each built up around their emotions quiver in anticipation of a crumbling, but no one seems ready to land the first blow. If you’ve put defences in place to keep yourself safe, why would you want to destroy them? It’s coming, yes. It may well be here very soon. It’s just a matter of who’s going to be the one to bring about the end.

Finally, Brooklyn speaks. She sucks in a breath that punctuates the silence, and when she breathes it back out, it’s accompanied by a flood of words. “This sucks,” she says, and there’s such venom in her voice for a situation they lost control of a long time ago. “This really sucks. I know we’re trying to pretend it isn’t, but it does, and I’m tired of acting like it doesn’t. We keep trying to fake it in the chat and I just wanna say I’m having a bad day, and I want you guys to say it too. I mean, things aren’t good, right? It’s not just me having a sh*t time.”

“It’s not,” Yaz says simply. Whether she means to or not, she speaks on behalf of everyone else. “It really isn’t.”

“Okay,” Brooklyn says, sounding relieved but conflicted. “But then why aren’t we saying it?”

“Because we can’t do anything about it,” says Yaz. “Not really.”

“We can support each other,” Brooklyn snaps. “That’s what we can do.”

“I know that,” Yaz rolls over to look at Brooklyn. “Of course I know that. But apart from that, what can we do? I can’t stop nightmares. I can’t come over and sit with you guys. I can’t be a therapist. I can’t do anything.”

“But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t just say things,” Brooklyn snaps through gritted teeth. She’s working herself up in a major way, but nobody wants to tell her to calm down. This is something she needs, and it might be something they need as well. They’ve been so reluctant to get angry, to let their emotions get the better of them. “I wanna say…I just want to tell you guys I’m not okay.”

These last words are a sob, and suddenly Brooklyn’s crying. Ever sympathetic, Sammy starts to as well. For a moment, nobody says anything. They just sit there and watch Brooklyn and Sammy sniff, and wipe at their eyes.

“I wanted to say it too,” Darius admits. He shuffles over on the mattress until he’s close enough to reach out and put a hand on Brooklyn’s shoulder. “All the time. But I didn’t want to upset you guys. Because I knew there was nothing you could do about it. And because I thought if you were doing okay, it wouldn’t be fair for me to bring everything back down.”

“You shouldn’t just assume that stuff,” Brooklyn says.

“Isn’t that what you’re doing though?” Kenji asks awkwardly. Brooklyn shoots him a look and he holds his hands up defensively. “Well…you didn’t say anything either. None of us did. None of us wanted to take the first step.”

Brooklyn sighs, and it’s an exhausted thing. “I’m saying it now then,” she says. “I’m not okay.”

“Yeah,” Kenji says. His face crumples. “I’m not either.”

“Me too,” Sammy whispers.

Yaz nods tightly, face twisted. “Same.”

“Yeah, that,” Ben crosses his arms tightly across his chest and hunches his shoulders and avoids looking at anyone. “Me too.”

Darius takes a breath in, and lets it out. He keeps his hand settled on Brooklyn’s shoulder while he looks around at everyone else. They’re all waiting for him to say it too. Him- the leader. Still somehow in charge, though of what, he can’t be sure.

“I’m not okay,” he says, and it feels like giving up and giving in and all those other words that means he’s failing at something he should be succeeding at. “I’m really, really not okay.”

Silence.

Long, drawn out silence.

No sobs, no sniffs. Barely even the sound of breathing.

No movement either.

Darius’ words echo through the room. He’s spoken for them yet again, put thoughts into a sentence that all of them agree with. United like they had been on the island, now it’s in their misery.

Then-

“Nothing we can do it about it, huh?” Yaz says bitterly. “Not when we’re so far apart.”

“We’re not right now,” Ben says, voice soft. “We’re really close.”

“A week’s not long enough,” says Sammy. She sounds reluctant to be the one to say it.

“Yeah,” says Kenji. “A week. Sure.”

Nobody can begin to understand what he means by that- not even Kenji, really.

“We won’t know a week isn’t long enough until it’s over,” Darius says slowly. He wipes at his eyes, not that he’s crying- just sort of…emotionally leaking. “So we shouldn’t just assume. I mean…we’ve done a lot of pretty impossible things in pretty short amounts of time. I’m…I don’t know what to suggest. But it’s like what Brooklyn said in the hospital. We gotta live in the moment. Shouldn’t cross a bridge until we get to it.”

Brooklyn manages a watery smile at the reminder.

“I don’t want to be sad all week,” Darius says honestly. “We’re together, and that’s like, the best thing for us right now. We should have fun, like normal kids.”

“The normal kids we never got to be,” Yaz says mournfully.

“We did, though,” Darius reminds her gently. “Before it all went to hell. Even sometimes during it. We mucked around and played games and stayed up late playing truth or dare. We can be those kids again. But, we gotta talk about this stuff as well.” Darius gestures to the heap of them, lying in their clothes seemingly unable to get up. “We can’t ignore it. That’s not how you fix things. So…so how about we make a rule. When we’re in here at night, we talk about the sh*t stuff. We tell each other what’s been going and we be honest with each other. Even if there’s nothing we can do about it, at least we can listen. At least we can get it off our chests. And then when it’s daytime, we go out and we do cool things that are fun, and we have a holiday that isn’t plagued by threat of dinosaur death.”

Ah…that’s it. That’s why he’s still the leader. That’s why he still has something to do.

“Does that…” suddenly, Darius is unsure. Maybe he’s gone too far this time. “Does that sound okay?”

Nobody lets a silence draw out this time. None of them can bare leaving Darius in the dark for even a second.

“It sounds great,” Yaz says honestly. “Well, maybe not great, cause-uh-I kinda hate talking about this stuff. But…it’s a really good idea, Darius. Thanks.”

“What if we don’t wanna say anything?” Ben asks.

“You don’t have to,” Darius says, though he shoots Ben a worried look. “You can just listen.”

“And what if we want to try and fix things?” Kenji wants to know.

“Then I guess we try.”

Isn’t that what they’ve always done? Try? You don’t just get to survive Isla Nublar because you’re going through the motions. You survive because you try. You put on that extra bit of speed to make sure you can get to that tree for safety. You hold in that breath even though your lungs are burning because a noise might get you killed. You eat food that you’d normally turn your nose up at to keep yourself steady and strong. You fight and you claw and you run and you hide and you try, you f*cking try.

And then you get out of there. You get home. And it becomes hard all over again for an entirely different reason, and somehow you’ve forgotten how to get through things like this.

You’ve forgotten how to try.

Darius wants to remember. He wants them all to remember. There’s a precedent in place for them to be stubborn and determined and all those other words that mean you don’t give up. They can’t have left it behind on the island, or even the boat when they made it to shore. He refuses to believe that.

“This is a good start,” he says. “What’s that thing people always say? Admitting it is half the battle.”

It’s a little weird to compare working through their emotions to a fight, but that’s what it feels like. Bloody and ugly, and tiring. It’s why they’re all lying here. It’s why none of them can find the strength to move. These days it’s like every ounce of their energy has to go towards the simple things- breathing and blinking. They fight to keep themselves upright, to mimic what it’s like to be alive and functioning. They can’t dedicate anything else to doing more. Not when they’re on their own.

But when they’re together, that’s a different story. They’ve always fit together better than most. They fill the gaps of each other. What one person lacks the ability to do, another has. Perhaps the Ancient Greek story of soulmates does exist- Zeus striking apart four armed and four legged people into two individual beings, always seeking out the person they were once intertwined with. But maybe in their case, it was the six of them wound together who got torn apart, and now they’ve been lucky to find each other again.

“We should try and sleep now,” Darius goes on. “I mean…I dunno about you guys but I haven’t really been sleeping well at home. But I think maybe it might be different with you guys around.”

“I hope so,” Ben mutters under his breath, so quiet that nobody hears it- not even Ben, really.

“We gotta get changed,” Kenji groans. “I don’t wanna move. Man, remember how we’d just go to be as we were.”

“Yeah,” Yaz sniffs in disgust. “It was gross. I think I still have the imprint of those clothes on me.”

“I hated not being able to brush my teeth the most,” says Sammy. The tension in the air is slowly dissolving. With a plan in place- always a plan that makes things better- they are slipping back into their usual groove, all snarky banter and casual chatting. “Never thought you could miss the taste of mint so much. And no, Ben, don’t say it. Chewing on vaguely mint tasting leaves does not count.”

“It counted for me,” Ben snarks.

“Let’s make it a race,” Darius suggests, eyes sparkling. “Fastest person to change and brush teeth gets to…uh…not wash dishes at dinner tomorrow.”

There’s a mad scramble as everyone kicks themselves free from the tangle of quilts and heads towards the various bedrooms they’re using to store their suitcases in, rather than sleep. It’s not that anyone is incentivised by the prospect of getting out of cleaning. They’re doing to for their own sakes, and for Darius who is doing his best to motivate them. Whoever gets back first will probably do the dishes anyway. Nobody wants to be left out of anything when they’ve got this chance to be together.

In the end, there’s only one bathroom in the guest house and Kenji takes front spot at the sink to prevent anyone from taking his spot as first, and they’re all forced to watch as he flings his toothbrush aside and takes a running leap back onto the mattresses. He’s being obnoxious about it, but it’s so familiar and so utterly Kenji that it just makes everyone smile. His out of character behaviour hasn’t gone unnoticed by anyone. Now that Darius has a plan in place for getting things off their chests, perhaps he’ll open up.

Brooklyn sighs as she waits for her turn at the sink, and holds up a strand of her brown hair to examine in the dim light they have.

“Help me dye my hair sometime?” she asks Yaz and Sammy, who are behind her in the line they’ve ended up making.

“Of course,” Sammy says. “Pink, yeah?”

“Nah,” Brooklyn says. “I’m in the mood for something different.”

We all are.

With the hallway light on to guide their way, everyone assembles back in the living room with Kenji. This time they put more thought into where they end up. Sammy and Yaz naturally take one of the double bed mattresses, and after some awkward gesturing and silent ‘you, no you’ back and forth-s, Kenji and Darius flop down on the second. Brooklyn and Ben each take the reaming single beds.

Sammy burrows down under the quilt and snakes a hand out to find Yaz’s wrist. She wraps loose fingers around it- a reminder that she’s here and at the moment, she won’t be going anywhere. Kenji lies ramrod stiff for a second, before inevitably his need to sprawl his limbs out takes over and Darius ends up all but sharing his space with an octopus. He rolls his eyes at Ben, but honestly he doesn’t mind at all. Brooklyn spends some time smoothing the sheets back out and adjusting the pillow she’s brought from home, and Ben lies on his back, staring at the roof like they’d just been doing moments before.

“It’s weird,” Sammy says. “Falling asleep like this. It’s like everything’s changed, but also somehow nothing has either.”

Different place. Different environment.

Same people.

“Anyway,” she says, when nobody responds to her words, choosing instead to let them hover in the air. “Night, y’all. I really love you guys. I truly am so, so glad you’re here.”

This time she gets an answer. The other five all chime in to say much of the same. The fact that they’re saying it to each other in person, and not over a phone, does not go unnoticed. In fact, they end up almost stuck in a circle of ‘goodnight’ and ‘I love you’ as everyone is reluctant to be the one to bring the moment to an end.

Finally, Yaz cuts it off.

“I’m going to sleep now,” she says. “Before it’s morning and we don’t get any rest. Love you guys. Goodnight.”

Kenji opens his mouth to start it up again, but Darius digs an elbow into his side. Yes, they want to keep saying it, but it’s not like they don’t know it already. They all love each other. In a weird sort of way, where it probably doesn’t make sense to anybody looking in from the outside. It works for them though, and that’s what matters.

Gentle light fringes the room, and the AC unit wafts a calm breeze over them. Their tired bodies find rest on soft surfaces, and from outside there is only the occasional sound of an animal moving, and not the terrifying crunch of a large dinosaur stepping on a branch. Far from the place that solidified their bond, they build something even stronger as they one by one start to fall asleep- like normal kids at a slumber party who have hit their limit despite protesting they’d be staying up all night.

(Ben doesn’t hit his limit. He closes his eyes and he tries to sleep but it just won’t come. He lies awake listening to the breathing of his friends, and knows something is truly, deeply wrong with him. If he can’t sleep here, then it’s over for him.)

It’s a strange thing, their lives. Sometimes it’s running from dinosaurs and dodging the media and facing off doctors. Sometimes it’s being torn apart and scattered across the country. Sometimes it’s parents staring at them like they’re unrecognisable, and it’s frantic messages to a group chat to confirm they’re all still out there. Sometimes it’s tears, and sometimes it’s anger. Sometimes it’s nightmares and no sleep. And sometimes it’s just six kids in a room, finding a moment of peace together.

They’re just waiting for that last one to be more permanent. They’re waiting for it to outweigh the bad things. They’re waiting for that sense of safety to kick in.

They’re waiting to get better.

Chapter 13: To find promise of peace and the solace of rest

Chapter Text

The sun rises on what is their third day out in the ocean. They’re all aware that it shouldn’t be taking them this long to find land, but there’s nothing they can do about it. They don’t want to push the boat too hard in case their patch job fails, and they’re working off of a compass that they can’t even be sure works. Only Kenji knows how to drive the yacht, and it’s a vague approximation at best that he can’t really teach the others. They get turned around and start traveling the wrong way, or stagnate as the boat stalls and struggles to get going again.

“Will we die out here?” Ben asks Darius once- just once. He turns eyes towards the horizon where presumably, Isla Nublar still lies. A little part of him wonders if he’s fully happy with his choice to leave it behind.

“No,” Darius says firmly. “We won’t.”

If it convinces Ben, he doesn’t show it. Darius can’t show it either. He’s not entirely sure of it himself. He just can’t say otherwise. It was his decision to stop waiting around for help. If the boat fails and they go down with it, or if they drift out too far and starve to death, then it will be his fault.

“It hasn’t been too long,” Darius says. “The boat’s damaged. It can’t go as fast as the fancy ferries that got us out here. This is a normal amount of time to take.”

None of them know what is normal in regards to ocean voyaging, but sometimes you just have to fake it until you make it, and oh, how desperately they want to make it.

The boat drops out from under then as it crests over a wave a little too roughly. Kenji yells an apology, and the sombre mood turns serious as Darius darts off to check the patch job, and Ben stumbles his way to the galley where he finds a wall and a piece of furniture to wedge himself between. When Sammy and Yaz come in to organise rations for breakfast, he pretends he simply fell asleep there last night. They exchange a look, but accept the excuse.

Brooklyn sits with Kenji in the bridge, or whatever you want to call it. She should remember it from her various videos, but she doesn’t. She keeps her eyes fixed on the compass like the lifeline it is. If she can’t be useful by driving the boat, then this is what she’ll do. This is how she’ll get them out of there.

Then she hears the roar of a motor that isn’t theirs, and the compass is knocked aside. Nobody bothers to pick it up again. It’s probably still lying on the floor of the boat, wherever it is now.

Brooklyn blinks tired eyes open, squinting a little at the light that dances through the room. Her head feels heavy, and she can’t quite understand why her thoughts are full of a compass that she hasn’t spent a second thinking about since they made it back to the mainland. She sits up and combs at her hair absently. Around her, the bodies of her friends are sprawled out in a way that slightly mirrors how they used to sleep on Nublar. Even with the sheets and quilts and pillows piled everywhere, Brooklyn can make out the tight couple that is Yaz and Sammy, and the jumble of arms and legs that is Darius and Kenji. Ben’s bed is empty, and it sends a bolt of fear ricocheting through her, but then she hears the toilet flush and hears the soft fall of footsteps that soon brings him back into sight. He sees her sitting up and tenses for a second- as though he couldn’t tell it was her. He relaxes soon enough though, and picks his way through their still sleeping friends to drop back down on his mattress.

Brooklyn notes his pale skin that makes his scars stand out, and the bags under his eyes that may as well be bruises, for how dark they are. He stifles a yawn that almost sounds pained.

“Sleep well?” she asks in a whisper.

“Yeah,” Ben says. He sounds sure of it, but Brooklyn can’t be sure it’s the truth when he looks so…tired. “You?”

“I slept great,” Brooklyn says honestly. It’s a surprise. She hasn’t had a restful night in a long time. It’s amazing what being around the others can help with. Even though she’d suspected she’d find comfort in their presence, it still feels shocking that they can have such an affect on her.

“That’s good,” Ben says. He fidgets with the edge of his quilt, and glances around at the others. “Should we wake them?”

Brooklyn thinks about it. A quick check of the time on her phone reveals it’s close to half past eight in the morning. Not a sleep in by most people’s standards, but definitely later than any of them have stayed in bed for over a year. She aches to get them up and hear their voices again, but they deserve their rest. None of them look like they’ve been getting it.

“We can wait,” she decides. “Let ‘em have a bit more time.”

Ben shrugs, like he didn’t really care what the answer would be one way or another, and lies back down. Somehow Brooklyn doesn’t think he’s going to try and fall back asleep.

“Ben,” she says. “Do you remember what we did with the compass?”

“The one we got from Kenji’s penthouse?”

“Yeah, that one.”

Ben shrugs again. “No. Probably got left on the boat.”

“Right,” Brooklyn says. “Do you-uh-do you know what happened to the boat?”

“No,” Ben says. “Might have been impounded somewhere.”

“Like a car?”

“Sure. It’s evidence, I guess. Of what we went through. Might need it for whatever lawsuit is probably coming. Wouldn’t be surprised if they wrecked it for parts either though. Not like it’s much use to anyone anymore.”

No, Brooklyn thinks. It had done its job, and now it isn’t needed anymore. A washed up thing- literally.

“Why do you care?” Ben asks.

It’s Brooklyn’s turn to shrug. She doesn’t know why she cares. It’s just something that’s sitting with her, and at the moment she’s sitting with a whole lot of f*cking problems, so she’d really rather not have to keep dealing with more and more things. She wants to tick them off like a list she can be done with.

“Ben,” she ventures again.

“Yeah?”

“Do you like that your mum is…kinda smothering?”

Ben sighs, and rolls over to look at her. “Why do you wanna know?”

This time, Brooklyn knows the why. She just isn’t sure how to say it. She looks helplessly at Ben- for a rare moment in her life, lost for words.

“I dunno,” he says. “I used to think I did. Cause it meant someone else took control when I was scared. And then we got stuck on the island, and I couldn’t rely on anyone else to get me out of things. Just myself. So now I’m back home and she wants to be…well, I guess she wants things to be the same. Her over the top mothering me. But I’m different now. So it’s hard.”

It’s the most Brooklyn’s heard Ben speak in a long time, even before being split up. He speaks flatly, bar the odd rise and fall that never seems to settle on the words Brooklyn thinks they should. His eyes make contact with a point somewhere just past her head.

“Does that help?” Ben asks.

“Help with what?” Brooklyn says innocently. “I’m not looking to get all deep right now. That’s what nighttime is for.”

Ben rolls his eyes. “I hope it helped.”

Brooklyn sticks her tongue out at him, but really she’s turning his words over in her mind. It’s hard. Yeah, it really is. She’s kind of afraid to go home, for how hard it is- for how hard she’s made it. Her dads have been sending messages constantly and Brooklyn has refused to look at each and every one. She should rip the bandage off the wound, but she’s terrified she’ll bleed out. If she had it her way, she’d freeze them in time right now. Make sure this week lasted an eternity.

“Let’s get the others up,” she decides. It’s just gone past nine now, and a full day of fun with her closest friends in the world stretches tantalisingly in front of her.

Ben grins, a wicked thing that reminds Brooklyn of every time he’d gone to start a fire on the island. “Ima hit Kenji with a pillow.”

Brooklyn whips her phone out instantly, swiping open the camera and flicking to the video setting. It really is about time she filled the storage on this with hundreds and thousands of pictures and videos of them. She doesn’t like not having a quick way to look at them whenever she’s lonely.

“Okay,” she says. “Go for it.”

Ben raises his pillow and brings it down swiftly, and Brooklyn laughs and laughs and laughs as Kenji splutters awake and rolls off the mattress with a very confused Darius along for the ride. It’s not far to the floor at all but Kenji milks this small fall- if you can even call it that- it for all it’s worth, still rolling around as Darius just grins and works to untangle them, rolling his eyes good-naturedly as Kenji claims it’s a betrayal of the highest order. His yells wake up an incredibly grumpy Yaz, and a more mellow Sammy. Slowly but surely, they come together again, shaking off the remains of sleep. Brooklyn and Ben’s conversation fades as well, perhaps to be addressed late and perhaps not to be.

“Breakfast?” Kenji asks hopefully once he’s had his fill of being dramatic.

“Clothes first,” says Yaz. She plucks at the oversized t-shirt she’s wearing as pyjamas that is advertising some defunct theme-park Yaz has surely gone down a rabbit hole on at some point. “I will not be seen in public like this.”

“I think you look gorgeous,” Sammy says, just to watch Yaz blush.

“Oh, we could make breakfast,” Brooklyn says. “Eggs and bacon and waffles and whatever. Treat your parents, Sammy.”

“They’ll have been up for ages,” Sammy says apologetically. “Ranch doesn’t run itself. But Hannah and Celia might like it. They tend to sleep in.”

Everyone (minus Sammy) pauses for a moment to remember how awkward it had been with Sammy’s sisters the previous evenings.

“Yeah,” Yaz says, perhaps the most desperate out of all of them to have Sammy’s family like her. “That sounds good.”

They get dressed quickly and head back to the main house. Darius’ idea from last night lingers over them as they walk. It’s the day, which means it’s time for fun, holiday-esque things. Making breakfast together seems like it ticks those boxes.

“Is now a good time to say I’m not a good cook?” Darius asks as they stand in the wonderful kitchen that is just begging to be used.

“Worked with world class chefs, remember?” Brooklyn says. She’s already found her way into the pantry and is unhooking aprons from the back of the door to hand out. She moves through Sammy’s kitchen with an ease that the others (apart from Sammy, of course) find hard to replicate. “I’ll teach you.”

“Nuh uh,” Kenji says, finding a chair to sit in. “Kenji doesn’t make breakfast. He only eats it.”

“No helping, no eating,” Yaz says. She leans against a bench with a wince that has all eyes flying to her instantly. “I’m fine.”

“Your ankle’s still healing,” Sammy says, with the knowledge being Yaz’s girlfriend affords her. “You shouldn’t be on it so much. Sit down. We’ll cook.”

“I thought no helping meant no eating,” Kenji says, clearly just teasing.

“I’ll help,” Yaz says. Sammy shoots her a look. “I can do something sitting down.”

“I’ll do that too, then,” says Kenji. He gets a glare from Yaz that he just smiles through. “Someone’s gotta keep you company.”

With that decided, they get to work. The kitchen is well stocked to allow them to make basically everything they could dream of, but that seems like biting off more than they can chew (literally) so they settle on going for a Canadian style breakfast- bacon and pancakes and fried eggs, complete with maple syrup to tie it all together.

“It’s not like we can’t make different stuff on other days,” Brooklyn points out.

They work in a tandem that is reminiscent of their time together (minus Ben) building their home base from the remnants of Camp Cretaceous. Little to no talking is required as Sammy points out where to find everything, and Brooklyn guides Darius through cracking eggs without leaving the shell in. Yaz and Kenji get brought the ingredients for the pancake batter and whisk it up together at the table, while Ben plants himself eagerly in front of the stove to do the actual cooking. Soon the air is full of the smell of sizzling bacon, frying eggs, and pancakes slowly turning golden as Ben expertly flips them over. It’s not long before Hannah and Celia stumble into the room, still in their pyjamas and yawning.

“Bout time,” Sammy says. “Wanna help set the table?”

Celia nods through a yawn, while Hannah goes to sit down next to Kenji and peer at him cautiously from behind her fringe. He tenses, waiting to be pinned down by another comment on his scars.

“I like your hair,” she says instead. “Do you use product?”

“All natural,” Kenji says, relaxing. From the other side of him, Yaz shakes her head at Hannah. Hannah laughs and seemingly relaxes as well. They’re off to a better start than last night.

When all the food is cooked and the table is set- juice and milk set out to drink- they all settle down to tuck in. It’s all cooked pretty much to perfection, but for the members of the Camp Fam who’d sat down to a very familiar meal once alongside adults they thought they could trust, it’s a reminder of how even when good things came about on the island, it never came without a price.

“What are you gonna do today?” Celia wants to know. If she can sense the strange tension at the table, she doesn’t comment on it. Ben- who definitely can sense it even though he wasn’t even there for the event that’s causing it- doesn’t say anything either.

“Maybe take the horses out,” Sammy says. “See the ranch properly. If that’s okay with y’all.”

She gets eager nods all round.

“Can we come?” Hannah asks.

“Um…” Sammy hesitates. She very purposefully doesn’t look at any of the others to see what they think- partly so Hannah won’t think they’re going over her head to communicate, and partly because she already knows what they’re all thinking. “Maybe another time this week? We’ve still got a lot of things we wanna catch up on.”

Hannah looks hurt, but Celia jumps in quickly. “We can plan something fun to do when you get back,” she says. “Right, Hannah? Maybe set up a surprise.”

“Okay,” mollified, Hannah returns to her food.

“Maybe the surprise can be doing the dishes for us?” Sammy says, grinning. “Since we cooked breakfast and all.”

“In your dreams,” Celia says flatly. “You cook it, you clean it.”

“Since when has that been a rule?”

“Since now.”

“Oh my god, you actually suck.”

“Only cause I take after you.”

The back and forth banter strikes a chord of familiarity for the campers, who just spent a year doing the same sorts of things. It just usually happened that when they snapped at each other like that, it wasn’t just for the fun of it. It was usually a distraction for the imminent death they would probably be facing in a couple of hours.

Darius in particular scolds himself internally for a thought like that. He doesn’t want a single year out of his life to colour all future experiences that are waiting for him, like it’s some messed up stained glass window that turns everything blood red. It isn’t fair to take perfectly innocuous interactions and say ‘well when we did it on the island it actually was a coping mechanism’ because that’s a completely unique experience only he and five other people went through. That, and it’s a total bummer. Yes, it was a year of back-to-back chaos, and he’s allowed to be affected by it, but to what extent? Surely not to the point that it takes over his entire life.

They finish their breakfast mostly in silence- a peaceful one that nobody seems to want to break because of how nice it is to just relax. They do the dishes because it’s quicker with five people who want to do it- Sammy won’t let Yaz get up and help, and neither Hannah or Celia want to budge- and pick their way out to where the horse stables are. The sun is inching its way into the sky, its powerful glare somewhat dampened by the clouds that are clustering around.

“Rain?” Kenji asks, frowning at them.

“City boy,” Sammy says, winking at Ben as she does. “Those ain’t gonna drop any water on us. Good protection though. Nobody here needs anymore sun burn than we already got.”

Everybody carefully doesn’t look at Ben.

“So…” Darius sizes up one of the horses. It seems so much bigger up close, and it doesn’t make sense for him to feel apprehensive about it. “I know we rode dinosaurs and all, but this is a totally different thing. I feel like I should have a licence or something.”

“Pshaw, you’ll do fine,” Sammy says. “Let’s get you all kitted up and head out. It’s like riding a bike. Best way to do it is just jump straight in.”

“That’s how a lot of kids break their arms,” says Ben, not looking too bothered at the prospect of jumping straight in considering how often he rode Bumpy, but still happy to offer up the possibility of one of them pulling a Yaz.

“Nobody’s gonna break an arm,” Brooklyn says. “It’s easy, right Sammy?”

“Easier than riding a bike,” Sammy agrees. “Horses are much more stable.”

Kenji groans at the pun.

“We’ll be fine,” Sammy continues. “Honest. I wouldn’t suggest it if I didn’t think we couldn’t do it. I…I’m not gonna do that to you guys.”

I’m not gonna put you in a situation like that.

“Right,” Yaz squares her shoulders and takes a step forward. “We said we were gonna have a fun holiday. So let’s have a fun holiday.”

It feels like the moment in a movie where everyone cheers, or that part in a cheesy internet story where the crowd breaks out in applause. Standing in the centre of a vast ranch, with no onlookers except themselves and a dozen horses, they don’t elicit that strong a reaction. Sammy beams though, and Brooklyn grins. Darius plasters on a look of determination, and Ben nudges Kenji’s shoulder reassuringly.

Now is probably one of those moments where they’re allowed to compare what they’re doing to what they’d done on the island. If they can ride an Ankylosaurus and drive dangerous vehicles, then they can ride a horse. It’s as simple as that.

And, well…in a life that’s kind of f*cked up at the moment, they need the simple things.

They spend almost the entire day out with the horses, taking in the vast space that is Sammy’s ranch, and stopping occasionally to rest. Sammy knows the best spots- naturally- to find shade and a comfy place to sit, and she leads the tour like she’s a professional who’s been training her entire life for this. It evokes a beat of familiarity- of being shown around Jurassic World by equally professional guides who knew the best ways to show off a dinosaur, but not how to keep six children safe. It goes without saying, but they all trust Sammy a whole lot more.

At one point they’re sitting under a large tree that has apparently weathered over a hundred years of everything Texas has to throw at it- horses moseying around without going far- enjoying the shade it’s casting as the sun sinks lower and lower. It’s not night, but the faint suggestion of darkness is letting their minds wander to what will happen when it’s time to turn the lights off and settle down. Will they finally let the walls crumble and let each other in, or will they resist even further?

It's funny the way the body works. It gets used to things quicker than people expect. Put a coaster in a certain spot and after a week, it’s instinctive to put your drink down there. Take it away though, and it will be far longer before you stop moving in the direction it once was. After barely a month on the island, they were used to each other. They existed in each other’s space with such ease. And then they lost it, and they’re still not used to turning and finding everything so…empty. What they’re doing now- this trip together- is like putting the coaster back. Your body is still able to fall into that pattern of understanding it will be there. But the next time it’s gone, it will be even harder to comprehend that.

You fix it by not putting the coaster back in the first place. You extend the separation until finally the body learns it’s not there anymore. They shouldn’t be here, not really. The first separation had been painful enough. Chances are this next one will be unbearable.

But their lives right now are already unbearable. What’s a little more on top of it? If you haven’t broken yet, there’s a chance you can hold out. Like building up an immunity to poison. You have to take a little bit of pain over and over again until finally the big bite simply won’t affect you. If you tell yourself the end result is worth it, then you can make it through.

Except…what is their end goal? It’s not to be apart, is it? It’s not to learn to bear the absence of the coaster, or the pain of the snake bite. They want to be together again, like they had been on the island. This world doesn’t have dinosaurs, but there’s still a whole lot of scary things it can throw out at them. They have to face it as the team- as the family- they are.

“Do you wanna go back?” Sammy asks. It’s a simple question- sit out in the shade a bit longer or head to their home base- and yet somehow there’s a deeper meaning to be found in it.

Do you want to go back to the island?

“I like it when it’s just us,” Brooklyn says. “No offense to your family.”

Maybe.

“Can’t stay out here forever,” says Yaz.

Why would you want to go back?

“Just a little bit longer,” says Kenji.

Because it was just us.

“It’s getting dark,” Darius points out.

It was dangerous.

“That never bothered us before,” Ben says.

We made it through.

“Didn’t it?” Sammy asks softly.

Did we?

There’s silence after that. A tiny breeze blows through, not much to cut through the heat but it makes Darius shiver anyway. He stands and walks to the edge of the shadow cast by the tree. Beneath him, his own silhouette stretches outwards, making him seem taller than he actually is. It’s funny, the things that make you big.

“Let’s go back,” he says. “To the ranch, I mean.”

“And after that?” Kenji asks quietly. Like how he had in the hospital anytime he was feeling bad, he has his knees tucked up so he can rest his head just behind it, eyes peering over.

“After the ranch?” Darius keeps looking at his shadow. What would it be like, to be that tall? He can’t quite imagine it. “I guess we go on.”

Wherever that may be.

Afternoon turns into evening, and evening turns into night. Hannah and Celia had set up some obstacle course on some old play equipment as the surprise, and the teens obligingly go through the motions of swinging and running and jumping that comes a lot easier on a rusted metal contraption than it had on the island. Yaz sits it out, timing them all instead and declaring Sammy the fastest, a biased option according to Brooklyn. They eat dinner, and the Camp Fam do the dishes- even Kenji, who’d technically won himself the right not- and then head back to the guest house where something awaits them. None of them are quite sure what, but there’s a tension in the air. Not the thick, heavy kind that makes you scared. Just the apprehensive one that leaves you unsure of what’s going to happen. Unlike the night before, they get ready for bed first, slowly changing in pyjamas and brushing the taste of the chilli Michael had made out of their mouths. There’s no rush like last time- no silly game to turn it into. They ready themselves for sleep as if they are going to a funeral.

One by one they drop down onto the mattresses. None of them lie down fully, choosing to sit with their legs crossed, or sprawled out in the illusion of lazy lounging. The tension presses itself onto them like how the roof appears to. Which wall will be brought down first?

Yaz cracks the silence, surprising the others as well as herself. If not for this rule Darius has introduced, she may never have spoken at all.

“I’ll never run again,” she says. It’s a simple sentence- four words to cover an entire lifetime of emotions that Yaz must be feeling. It’s the end of a story, the kind that leaves you unsatisfied and grumpy. You want it to be different, but it can’t. It’s out in the world and that’s all there is to it.

Yaz will never run again.

“I’m sorry,” Kenji says softly.

There’s not much else they can say. It’s none of their faults- not Yaz’s for hurting it, or Kenji’s for trying to take it easy, or Sammy and Darius’ for needing saving from the Mosasaurus. You could blame the people who left them there and never came back to see if they were alive, but then you’re just playing the blame game for eternity. You have to make peace with things as best you can. This is the first step to that- letting them out into the world.

Yaz forces a smile. “I expected it,” she says, as if that makes it any easier. As if being prepared for life shattering news means it doesn’t break your world around you. “I just…wanted you guys to know. So then you won’t find it weird when I don’t. Run, that is.”

They’ve only been back together for barely a day, but it’s been clear to everyone that Yaz has needed to leave her track star life behind her. The clothes are the biggest indication- there hasn’t been even a hint of running pants- but she’s also been walking slowly. Very, very slowly. Far more slowly than she’d walked on the island when the ankle was f*cked up in the first place. Nobody has brought it up simply because Yaz hasn’t. Not until now. Even Sammy knows when to push Yaz to open up, and when to give her some much needed space.

“Thank you,” Darius says. “I…I’m sorry, I can’t even remember if I said it back then. Thank you for saving us from the Mosasaurus. You got hurt because of that, but you saved our lives. Thank you.”

Yaz looks at him, and then at Sammy. The girlfriends are sitting as closely as they possibly can without one of them ending up in the other’s lap. There are the beginnings of tears in her eyes that nobody knows if she’ll let fall or not. Sammy mouths the same two words Darius had- they’re words she’s said a thousand times, but only through messages. Never in person. Yaz knows how grateful Sammy is, but she wants to keep saying it just to be sure.

“I would do it again,” Yaz says. “Even if I knew the outcome, I’d do it. I wouldn’t even have to think about it. It could cost me the whole thing- bones and all- and I’d still do. You guys…you guys are worth it. All of you.”

They sit there in the circle they’ve made, darkness pressing in on them from every angle. Once again, the soft hallway light keeps it at bay, keeps the shadows from taking form into something more dangerous. In a moment like this, time seems frozen. It’s just them, and the night, and the idea Darius had come up with.

“When we’re in here at night, we talk about the sh*t stuff. We tell each other what’s been going and we be honest with each other. Even if there’s nothing we can do about it, at least we can listen. At least we can get it off our chests.”

“Thanks,” Yaz says. There’s nothing anyone can do for her ankle anymore. “For listening.”

There are plenty of things they can do for Yaz, though. And listen…well, it’s one of the easiest things.

“Okay,” Yaz says, snapping the tension in half as she slices through it with a brisk word. “Someone else go. Please.”

It makes Brooklyn laugh, and Sammy smile. Darius grins, and Ben snorts, and Kenji puts on an exaggerated sigh. It’s still Yaz. Still awkward with emotions, and uncomfortable with talking. They know things change- especially in a situation like theirs- but despite everything, it’s them. It’s still them.

“We don’t have to, you know,” Darius says. Intentionally or not, he brings back that tension. “Say something. I just wanted us to have space for it if we needed to. But I don’t wanna force you guys-”

“It’s okay, Darius,” Sammy cuts him off, not unkindly. “Don’t trip yourself into an apology. It’s a good idea, we all agreed. It’s just…gonna be hard.”

Like everything in their lives right now.

“It’s important,” Sammy continues. She leans her head on Yaz’s shoulder. You’re important. “To say this stuff. That’s why…that’s why I wanna tell y’all this. I’m-I’m really afraid I’m gonna hurt someone in my family if things keep going the way they are.”

“Woah…” Kenji says quietly. “Sammy-”

“I hit Celia the other day,” Sammy says in a rush. “I mean, it was just a dusting cloth, but I got her in the eye and I could have done some serious damage. She snuck up on me and my instincts just took over. I thought she was a dinosaur, or hell, maybe I thought she was someone like Mitch or Tiff. It doesn’t matter now. Whatever I thought, it made me hit my sister. That’s not okay.”

“It’s not your fault,” Brooklyn says.

“Yes, it is,” Sammy says. “I hit her.”

“She startled you.”

“But she’s not someone I should be afraid of!” Sammy cries. “So it’s not okay for me to lash out like that. Yeah, she startled me. But we did that all the time before the island. Snuck up on each other or accidentally freaked each other tryna get someone’s attention out cause we had headphones in or something. It’s normal. Hitting Celia? That’s…that’s not normal. Not at all.”

Sammy draws away from Yaz, slowly, like she thinks Yaz might not notice. Mirroring Kenji, she tucks herself into a ball and hides inside herself.

“I…” Darius starts, and then stops.

He looks between the rest of the friends, seeking an answer from them that none of them can give. He opens his mouth, pauses, and then closes it. He looks at Sammy- really looks at her- and then he thinks, what haven’t they already done for each other? What lengths are out there that they haven’t gone to? Now isn’t the time to start being scared of trying. He can’t forget that- it’s the very thing that motivated him last night to ask this of them.

“I do that too,” he says. “I…any kinda noise Brand and mum make near me, I panic. If I’m not expecting it. I…yeah, I haven’t actually hit them. But I dropped a plate once. And cracked a glass. And I cried.”

Sammy untucks herself slightly, and looks at him. He gives her a tentative smile. On the other side of her, Yaz starts to shuffle closer again.

“Me too,” it’s Ben who joins in. He fidgets uncertainly with the straps of his ‘dork pouch’ that he still has with him even after getting into pyjamas, and tries to give a smile like Darius’. “I’ve been getting…startled. By mum. And by tree branches on my window. I…I nearly hit her, my mum. I didn’t, but I could’ve. And, hey, I’m pretty weak. But it still would have sucked.”

Sammy uncurls even more, leaving herself open for Yaz to slide back in. She startles, flinches, and then settles.

“No one’s actually been around much to startle me,” Kenji says. As his voice has been for almost this whole trip, he speaks lowly and softly. “But I think if they were, I’d freak out too.”

Bit by bit, they offer these pieces of themselves to Sammy.

“My dad knocked on the door once, and before I knew what I was doing, I was pushing my dresser in front of it,” Brooklyn says.

“I have to have the light on,” says Yaz. “Always. So nobody can sneak up on me.”

See, they tell Sammy. Not directly, but in words that mean almost the same. See? You’re not alone. We’re in this together. In the dark of the night, and the light of the day, we’re the same.

“What if next time I go too far?” Sammy whispers. She’s stopped hiding her face, and closing herself off from Yaz, but there’s still fear in her eyes and a tremor in her voice. “What if next time I do some serious damage?”

“Do you think there will be a next time?” Darius asks- no judgement in his voice, just gentle curiosity.

Sammy nods. “I know there will be.”

Because this isn’t just about to go away. They can talk, and they can listen, and they can learn from each other, but they don’t quite know how to make it stop. When the danger comes from outside- from dinosaurs and mankind alike- they know what to do. They have plans upon plans upon plans. Defence systems, secure places to hide. Strong legs to run away on, and nimble hands to haul them up trees. When the danger can be touched, they can fight back. But…what about when it comes from inside you?

What happens when your very body and mind is the enemy?

They know what happens. This happens. This attempt at life they’re trying to live right now. The nightmares, and the stilted appetites, and the anger, and the fear, and the misery, and the everything.

It wasn’t a fair fight against the dinosaurs, and it isn’t a fair fight now. Once again they’ve been left in the deep end to try and tread water in an ocean that wants very much to drown them. The only difference this time, is that there is a way out. There is a life boat they can climb onto, if they so choose to. It hovers over all of them- a looming possibility on the horizon that none of them have dared to mention yet, not to each other. Their parents bring it up (bar one obvious exception) but they are shut down time and time again, sometimes sharply, and sometimes kindly. Still, it offers an out that they really should take. It’s just a matter of if they’re strong enough to pull themselves on board.

Therapy.

It could help. It most likely would. It would be better than doing nothing. It would be a tangible way to track progress. It would be interacting with an adult. It would be trusting them into their world. It would be talking. It would be crying. It would be trying. It would be failing. It would be this and that and everything.

None of them mention it. They don’t say a single word.

They’ve gotten through the storm once. Closed their eyes and come out on the other side. They didn’t need any adults to make it happen- they made it happen. And on the way they gathered plenty of evidence that there are only a chosen few they can truly trust from the billions of people alive on earth. Them- the six campers, and nobody else. They can love their families dearly, and feel fondness for friends and acquaintances who waited for them to come home, but at the end of the day, those people can’t be trusted. It’s just them against the world.

And none of them can help Sammy. They can’t even help themselves.

“What happens if we can’t make it back?” Darius asks Brooklyn. It’s their first night out on the ocean, and it’s dark. Much too dark. The few candles they have going feel like the last remaining light in the whole world. Even the sky is clouded over, and no stars have the strength to peer through.

“Can’t?” Brooklyn asks. “Or don’t.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Maybe.” Brooklyn glances over her shoulder. It’s cold, but she and Darius have found themselves on the front deck, staring out at the open ocean while behind them, Kenji keeps a death grip on the wheel. She can see him if he looks- a lone soldier standing guard.

“What happens?” Darius presses.

Brooklyn shrugs. “We die, I guess.”

Darius slumps over, betraying his age that sometimes Brooklyn has such a hard time remembering.

“I don’t want to die,” he says.

“I know,” says Brooklyn. “People who wanna die wouldn’t fight this hard to survive.”

It’s Darius’ turn to look back over his shoulder. He stares past Kenji to where Yaz and Sammy were last seen, tucked up together. Somehow Brooklyn knows who he’s thinking about.

“She freezes up cause she’s scared,” Brooklyn says. “Not because she wants to die.”

“Yeah, okay.”

It really is too cold on the open ocean to be out on the deck, but neither Darius or Brooklyn move. Months ago- it feels like years- they sat on this very deck with the sun warming them, planning pranks to pull on Kenji and enjoying a brief moment of respite that felt long overdue.

“Do you think we should be doing more?” Darius asks. Brooklyn doesn’t understand him for once.

“Doing more what?”

“I dunno,” Darius says. “Forget it, it’s stupid. I just don’t like how uncertain things are out here. There’s nowhere to run to.”

“You sound like Ben,” Brooklyn teases.

Darius manages a smile. “Who do you think put the idea in my head?”

“Honestly, Darius,” Brooklyn glances over at Kenji one last time. “I think we shouldn’t have to do anything else. I think we’ve done enough.”

“But we have to keep going,” Darius says.

“Yeah,” Brooklyn whispers. “We have to keep going.”

The boat cuts a course through the small waves, a white shadow against inky darkness that feels like it could be leading them to the edge of the world, for all the visibility they have.

Brooklyn curls cold fingers around the railing of the deck, and waits for the drop.