Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

As soon as they could speak they were calling Claire mother.

When the project first began, long before her employment there, mixes between Humans and dinosaurs was temperamental with virtually no success stories. The first break through happened in 1999, when scientists were able to find compatibility between Human DNA and carnivorous dinosaurs, particularly the Velosiraptor. In the years since, the technology came along in leaps and bounds, with funding pouring in from the military and government alike, various official bodies interested in the medical applications and investing huge amounts of money.

The first group Claire ever saw looked like a mangled mix of claws and scales, with only a tiny semblance of Human in them. The strain, 9P43, she was told were a 'radical' improvement, with each strain of hybrids gaining momentum and life spans. Of the thousands made in that one strain, only five made it to hatching. From Claire's eyes, they're not much to look at, and for a moment she wondered if there was something wrong with the one blinking at her through the wired, thick glass. While the creature's speech was distorted, and tinny through the speakers, it was clear what they were saying. These six strange creatures with blotchy, marbled skin and warped bodies watched her in rapt interest. Their appearances were the result of a DNA mix that had churned out something Claire thought would perhaps not look out of place in a horror film. A Godzilla remake maybe.

Mother. Jaw clenched, Claire stared into the eyes of one of the males.

"Who taught it that word?" She turned on her heels, her steely gaze searching all the scientists gathered, and each of them looked away.

None of them wanted to be subject to their boss' wrath about what they had thought would be a cute, harmless joke. Being called mother by the thing behind the glass was unsettling, it's gaze naturally predatory even with such an endearment on it's too long tongue.

Behind her, Claire's rejection stung the boy behind the glass, quietly begging his mother to look back at him and not walk out so angry.

She's so beautiful, her red hair and bright blue eyes, pretty features. She's his mother, he wanted her to be his mother. But she walked out, huffing under her breath, and he and his siblings let out a mournful sound. He'd thought she would be pleased...

They died a week later. Some biological mix didn't work, their bodies were studied, samples taken, and incinerated. Claire read the report quickly and accurately, before asking Zara to file it in archives. Her thoughts never turned to the thing that called her mother ever again. No one taught the next eight generations to call Claire mother either, learning from their mistake. Two generations she never even gets to see, they perish too quickly, and it's almost a year before their biggest break through.

By the time Strain 0B10 is hatched, they'd almost given up. The medical advancements and military applications seeming further and further away with each failure. Some groups failed to even make it past fertilization, the eggs dying while still in the petri dish, and the ones who make it only do so for a few months if they were lucky.

The early generations were more dinosaur than Human, the genetics for the various merged dinosaurs proving to be more potent than Human splicing. So with each try they diluted the dinosaur genetics, and only the hardened scientists could stare impassively at the startlingly Human looking creatures stumbling around on clawed hands and feet- eyes with slit pupils set further on the sides of their heads. It gets harder the more the tests look Human, and one man quits in a theatrical display, tears streaming down his face and words blubbering together:

"I can't do this anymore. I can't... I can't watch anymore children die and then get thrown in the incinerator- I... I quit!"

Children. A word that was banned but still got uttered sometimes. They were tests, experiments, generations or subjects. Not children. Never children. Acknowledging what they really were made it worse. The only one who managed to keep their cool were Claire and Dr. Wu. His work was ground breaking, split between the creation of all the hybrids, and Claire only popped in to check everything was running smoothly. She never looked at the creations, she hadn't in a while: her job wasn't to care, it was to keep the park running.

Strain 0B10, a strain of hybrid spliced with carnivorous, predatory dinosaurs specific to the military side of research, is an alarmingly Human looking group. Even those used to seeing mammal babies cracking out from eggs find it weird to see these ones' hatch. Their eyes aren't unusually wide set, their skin is tougher but not scaled, and they're the first generation to have Human hair.

"They're almost completely Human on the outside" Dr. Wu reported, standing in Claire's office. "Their skin is shown to be tougher than Human flesh, and they're still in infancy so we anticipate further tougheni-"

Claire looked up, cutting him off. "Do you anticipate they'll live beyond the average?"

Dr. Wu smiled. "We hope they do, with each dilution of the dinosaur components the subjects life spans have extended by an average of four days. Strain 0B10 is quite remarkable" He trailed off, waiting for her to ask why exactly.

With a restrained eye roll, she does.

"They've lived an entire month longer than the overall average. That's two and a half weeks longer than Strain 8T23. We have... faith in this strain."

After the meeting Claire makes plans to visit this 'remarkable' strain and see for herself. She sets it for another week, expecting them to not be around by the time the date arrives, and she'll be looking at a new set of eggs.

But instead of a new batch, she looked through the glass and sees a nursery. Human toys and a group of children physically two years old padding around squealing happily- the sound too loud and wild, more similar to the dinosaur screeches than a baby's gurgle. It knocks her, shocks her. She had been expecting something like the warped amphibian looking creatures from two years ago, not...

"They look Human" She whispered, transfixed.

By her side, Dr. Wu nodded. "As was in the report, their outward appearance is virtually identical to Human infants, with some differences. They still have premature scales along their spines, two have half-formed tails and they all have retractable claws in both hands and feet. On the inside their lung capacity is extremely high, allowing for unidirectional breathing and their eye sight has developed much faster than average Human infants"

Claire frowned. "You're comparing them to Human children?"

He sighed, telling her it wasn't something he completely agreed with or approved of. "At this point, they're more Human than they are any of the dinosaurs spliced. They're not the sci-fi dino-Human hybrids Hoskins and the army were fantasizing about, but they're a huge step in medical science, the possibilities this batch has for improving our health care system and the treatments that could be made available are nigh endless"

As she looked into the nursery, Claire spotted one near the back, studying a block and putting it down on another, constructing a rudimentary building while it's siblings threw soft toys and screamed. Her breath hitched when It looked up at her, a full head of dark hair and dark eyes scrutinizing her. It blinked once and then got bored, looking back down at it's creation with the same strange intensity that briefly made her wonder what It was thinking and if It could think.

Another two months and the two with tails died, one was killed in an accident with it's own claw, and three were terminated for genetic failure. The only one left was the same one Claire had locked eyes with, sitting by itself.

It's the only one that lived to look like a five year old, and by then the next few generations had passed, all failures. When the report was placed on Claires' desk she reads that that it has shown an aptitude for mechanics, has displayed a more negative personality in recent weeks and while it can speak often chooses not to. Although she's heard the experiments speak before, Claire had to wonder what the success sounded like: did it's voice sound as gargled and screechy as it's predecessors? Or did the heavy dilution Humanize it's vocal cords?

"Subject's mood notably improves when music is played to it" Claire read a loud, eyes flickering over the words. What kind of music would a five-year-old looking eight month old Human-dinosaur hybrid even listen to?

Zara looked up from her desk, a sharp grin on her face. "I bet they play it dub-step"

Her assistant only knew about it by accident opening one of Claire's emails- as was her job after all, Claire couldn't fault her for it- and had since signed a disclosure agreement. Claire hadn't realised she'd voiced her question, and for a moment stared at Zara like the other woman had grown a second head.

Then she laughed, shaking her head. Dub-step. No, surely not.

"Maybe I should buy it some headphones if it reaches a year old" The director joked back. She carried on reading, and by the conclusion of the report all mirth had soured and her throat felt dry.
Claire closed the file slowly, ignoring Zara's questioning look, and gazed at the wall trying to piece together what she'd read.

"Oh my god" Claire whispered. "They've named it. They've actually named it"

Zara dropped her phone.

'An appeal was made on April first, and upon unanimous agreement a vote was made to decide what to name the surviving subject. On April eighth early morning, the vote settled, and the subject has been allocated the name "Zach".'

Chapter Text

While the carnivorous strain of research moved along well, the herbivores were harder. A clash of genetics, due to Humans being predators and naturally omnivorous. Getting the genes to mesh smoothly proved nigh impossible, but with the success of 0B10 the team of scientists working on herbivore hybrids were motivated.

On the other end of the scale, the carnivorous team were cowed. Although there was very little Claire could do to enforce a rule against naming the subjects short of unfair dismissal and other employee complains that were more effort than one name was worth, she had made it clear to them that naming subjects was in no way beneficial to the program and did not want to hear any of them use it in her presence. Treating the subjects as anything other than what they were would complicate far too many aspects of their work, and they had already lost another researcher due to moral qualms. They still persisted in calling the subject Zach, while never to her face they still tripped up: her eyes narrowing whenever the assistants fumbled over the sounds and warping a 'Z' into a 'the'.

The only person aside from herself who had no trouble in calling Subject 0B10 by it's line code was Henry Wu, the doctor gaining another measure of respect from Claire. He'd been there since the beginning of it all, and it was hard for anyone to not admire the man's skill and work ethic. Despite her pressure on the carnivore researchers to cease naming their subjects, the memo had apparently not reached the herbivore section of work. The one primarily funded by medical sponsors: the army paid very little attention to it, less interested in the idea of weapons made from less blood thirsty creatures than they were the clawed thing at the other end of the facility.

Of the hatch of nine, only two survived beyond a month, a female and a male, and to Claire's horror the team there had already named the pair. Like their sister team in the north block, the group got a stern talking to, but Claire had begun to feel more like a school teacher chastising misbehavior than a professional director enforcing site rules. So she decided to let it slide.

"The male is Gray, after his shell. Oh you should have been it, all the others were cream and speckles, but his was completely smooth and flawlessly light gray. Seemed appropriate" Dr. Whittle gushed, her warm eyes taking in the babies poking curiously at their toys. Dr. Whittle was a woman nearing her fifties, whom to Claire had always seemed polite and reasonable. Their talks were more informal than Claire would have liked, but no one could deny Dr. Whittle was a pleasure to work with, and with no complaints against her and an impressive scientific portfolio her place at Jurassic Park was more than secure: it was revered.

Standing with an expression contrasting the smile Dr. Whittle wore, Claire took in the sight before her with a forced sense of clinical detachment. The nursery wasn't so different from the one the carnivorous tests were in, the same basic lay out and decor. However, Claire noticed the doors were not so heavily fortified, and the glass was not so ludicrously as thick with the wired composite Claire had learned to ignore when checking up on subject 1B10. The babies inside had large, open eyes, both startling blue in contrast to the deep set, predatory dark eyes the carnivorous subject on the other end of the facility had. Their attention flickered around, before the female noticed someone standing beside her carer and perked up, peering at Claire with unsettling wonderment.

"The female's name is-" Claire held up a hand, silencing the other woman. She tore her eyes off the female, and looked to Dr. Whittle. "I don't want to know. I don't approve of you and your team naming them this early on, or at all. It's not professional"

Dr. Whittle's lips pursed as if about to argue the point, but seemed to decide it was not worth it and instead waved to the young subjects inside the nursery. The male's head bobbed as it looked from it's sister to where she was looking, and for a moment Claire wondered what the movements of the mouth were meant to form. A growl?

To her shock. It smiled at the women, and his hand flapped awkwardly to return Dr. Whittle's wave.

"He learned that, all on his own. Same for Little Lula" Dr. Whittle piped in, a tone of adoration in her voice. There was amusement in her dark eyes as she took in Claire's struck expression, and more than a little pride for her subjects' achievements. "I've heard that the carnivorous projects haven't ever smiled. I wonder if it's the predator in them? The show of teeth identified as a challenge, or a threat?"

Too attached. Claire thought, glancing back and forth between the woman and the subjects. Far too attached. They all were, the entire research group seemed to have lost their common sense since subject 1B10's naming, the only one managing to retain any semblance of professionalism was Dr. Wu, who called the subjects 'it' and too glared at his assistants and peers when they tripped over pronouns and titles. She's going to be heart broken when they die.

Because they would soon. All the subjects would eventually. Their accelerated growth was cause for worry and a number of scientists working on the project theorized that their lives were less than a third the length of a Human life. There was of course no way to tell, none had lived past infancy until subject 1B10: but estimated growth and aging patterns did not lie. The topic had long since been flagged for further investigation, but not much could be done when the subjects failed to even make it to a year.

Once the report ended Claire left, wanting no more to look at Gray and Little Lula than she had Zach and his now deceased siblings. A voice in her head suggested she find some way of becoming detached from the program altogether, alarm bells ringing in her mind as she pictured the young subject's smile and quirky wave. But a more reasonable side reminded her that there wasn't any way she could, she was the overseer of the entire park, and that included the goings on outside of the public eye. The program was confidential but still a part of her job description, and it would not look good if she put in any kind of request for a duty change.

Claire tried to put it out of her mind.

Lying in her bed that night, staring at the ceiling and willing herself to not dream again in confusing snippets of subject 1B10, no doubt with wide blue eyes joining the mix from then on, a thought occurred to her. Maybe it wasn't their natures that caused the smiling phenomenon, as Dr. Whittle and the team had called it. With a heightened dilution of Human DNA and a very Human formed mouth, with lips, and short, snout-less jaws and noses, there was no reason they couldn't smile and considering all of subject 1B10's other Human mannerisms: it seemed strange that a smile was the one exception. So was it not nature but nurture? Maybe Gray and Lula learned how to smile by seeing the scientists and researchers smile, a show of open affection towards them that they, like any other Human child, would return and learn positive associations from?

...but had Dr. Wu ever smiled at Zach?

Days passed and the thought wouldn't leave her. There was something unexpectedly sad about the idea that whatever they had made in that lab had never seen something so simple as an affectionate smile. It should not bother her, Claire told herself each time it came up, niggled at the back of her mind, but it did.

Not only that, but the itch in her mind that she had, in her sleep deprived state, called the subjects their names. Although only in her head, it felt like a grossly hypocritical breach of her own rules. It opened up a flood gate that broke down her walls faster than she could build them. Every other thought was about the boys and girl. How their eyes studied objects with startling intelligence. How the sounds they made were the strangest blend of Human and other. The drive to go see them when a new check up was not even due.

Which was how she found herself back at the north section, standing tense outside the carnivore nursery staring through wired, inches thick glass at the laughably bored looking child inside.

"Do you smile at him?" Dr. Wu frowned, staring at her as though she were speaking in a foreign language. Claire bit the side of her mouth when she realised what pronoun she had used. "I'm sorry, Ms. Dearing?"

Claire nodded to the nursery, where Zach sat at a small red plastic desk coloring in.

Faintly she could hear Tchaikovsky playing into the room, and noticed that Zach did indeed seem calmer since the installation of speakers. He was nowhere near the ball of joy Gray and Lula seemed to project, but he looked less angry. His face still held the same scowl despite how relaxed the rest of his body seemed, and Claire's brow furrowed, trying to image those lips forming into a sweet smile like the one baby Gray had graced her.

"Do you smile? Has the subject ever seen you smile?" Claire repeated, wondering why she was even asking. From Dr. Wu's blank expression, he thought much the same as he did: what was the point?

Dr. Wu shrugged. "I smile as much as any other, it might have seen. But I can't be certain- Why are you asking?"

It jarred Claire a touch to hear Dr. Wu call Zach it, she had heard it many times before and up until a week and a half before had even admired him for it: for this appropriate work mentality. But now it sounded like a blow, knocking her after just a short time considering them as something more than just subjects. All attempts to correct herself would fail, some being inside her snapping it's jaws whenever she tried to think of them as nothing more than growths put together in a dish, with no minds and no feelings. Up until Lula and Gray, the only emotion displayed seemed to be anger and hunger, emotions that made it so easy to down grade them as base creatures and not something so much more.

Step back. She warned herself. Claire opened her mouth to say never mind, to leave the dangerous, slippery slope topic where it was. But instead, she said something completely different.

"When I visited the herbivore research sector, the subjects they have there are capable of smiling" Claire told him, raising her eyebrows in agreement at his surprised look. "Dr. Whittle theorized that it wasn't in predator nature to smile, but then I wondered..."

Dr. Wu seemed to be getting it, his expression thoughtful as it considered it. "How does any baby know how to smile?" He shrugged again, the answer obvious. "Because we smile at them"

For a reason Claire couldn't place, the confirmation of her suspicion that Zach had never seen a smile clear enough to understand what it meant gave her a hollow feeling, raw and pained. What was life worth when no one showed an ounce of kindness? Something so simple as a pull of facial muscles to show affection?

It filled her with a powerful sensation of regret, of sorrow, and as Dr.Wu moved away, Claire steeled herself against the unwelcome feelings. When her blue eyes flicked back to where the subject was coloring, Zach had looked up and was staring right at her.

She smiled, cautious and mechanical, a perfect smile she used for her meetings and presentations.

For a moment he glared, uncomprehending. But then his deep eyes lit up and changed subtly, clearing away his scowl in barely a blink. The emotion in them was unmistakeable: familiarity. Although he hadn't seen her for a large portion of time, a huge development stage from his infant state to his toddler stages, he recognized her. Claire knew nothing of children's development and how long it took before they began to recognize people outside of their mother, nor how similar these things were meant to be to Human children, but she felt like this was important. Like it was something she should keep note of and maybe even honor. Brown eyes traced her face, reading her expression, and tilted his head in an unsettling, yet strangely adorable manner.

The corner of his mouth twitched.

Chapter Text

In the following weeks, the days forming smoothly into promising weeks and months, Claire started visiting the subjects more often. It began with dropping by for only a few minutes, before catching herself and turning on her heels, thoughts cluttered with excuses for leaving and repremands for being there in the first place: and escalated into entire hours spent talking to the handlers of the three wonders. The red haired woman found her feet taking her in the direction of the labs before her mind caught up and turned in a sharp detour. Although those times were frequent, more than was strictly professional did she carry on walking and find herself pushing through the doors to settle bright blue eyes on a little boy who liked to listen to music, or two children shrieking in delight as they stumbled around their play pen.

Whatever the sight she met it made her chest flutter and her lips curve in a ghost of a maybe. Maybe she would smile. Maybe she would admit to herself that she'd gotten attached..

Nothing good would come of it, let alone the time she was wasting on the fleeting check ups. So Claire kept it at an unacknowledged maybe and refused to return the greetings of the assistants to whom she had become a regular. It disturbed her to think that she lacked any self control, every aspect of her life until then had been meticulously planned and executed with very little deviation. Her sister always claimed it wasn't heathly, and that Claire ought to let herself indulge for once, and while for years she had denied seeing the benefits: the smile on Gray and Lula's face or the visible release of tension in Zach's shoulder whenever they saw her made her want to give in and stop lying to herself.

Lying to herself that she hadn't squeaked in alarm coming into the carnivorous unit to find Zach caged, arm through a window in the wires, and an assistant taking blood samples- his young, perpetually annoyed face twisted in discomfort.

Lying to herself that she hadn't wanted to slap the assistant's hands away and enact some kind of warning. It was stupid of her really to be shocked. Zach was a breakthrough, and they needed to know what made him work when all other attempts had failed. There was no reason for her to think they would just raise him as any other child in a home environment, that they would let those three children be. He, and Gray and Lula, would never have any life even marginally close to the one she'd been raised with because they were to their core, miracle experiments in a lab. Their existence fell into several legal loop holes and morally gray areas, it was a wonder it had ever been approved for production. They were something from a ridiculous sci-fi movie written by someone who knew not a lick of science, and from that came the difficulty.

No one really knew how to treat something that no one had believed would ever actually exist outside a fantasy novel. All three were so close to Humanity, but too heavily tied to the impossible that they fell short of Human Rights, or even Animal Rights that now encompassed dinosaurs, that their pronouns were formally 'it' and their names officially 'the assets' or the 'subjects'. There were no legal requirements to give them beds or toys, or shown affection. There was nothing to protect them if the park and company's sponsors decided to no longer invest.

Yes they were miracles of science, a marvel that everyone who worked with them treasured in their own ways, but they were one word. Collateral. They were an unexpected equation that was disposable in a way life should never be. Their worth could be dissolved into samples, reports and squiggles on a whiteboard, the brightness of their minds and the spark of soul in them was of no consequence. Perhaps a philosopher might want to know how they showed such individual personalities having been grown in a dish, but the real leaders of the operation weren't interested. The phenomenon of life in unbelieving places wasn't the focus: extending and improving the lives of natural origins was.

Calling them collateral damage was a harsh reality Claire faced when she gazed into the nursery at the two youngest, sharing between each other their toys and their smiles. Like with all who suffered on the journey to revolutionary developments, they would at best be words in a child's textbook in the coming future and at worst, mentioned only as a generalized impersonal term ignoring any reference to the spark of beauty their existence really was.

Claire's eyes stung, the tip of her nose turned pink as emotion bubbled inside her, comparing the bleak thoughts to the sight in front of her.

"How's my little girl?" Tobias greeted, knocking Claire from her internal crisis, and for a scandalized second Claire thought he was talking to her. But his voice was muffled, and the director realised Tobias was inside the nursery, having slipped in sometime during Claire's trance of reflection. In response to their handler's question, the children let out shouts of delight. Neither had noticed her yet, as absorbed by their game as they were, and now by Tobias. "Yes, and you Gray, my man"

Without the danger of being attacked from instinct, and the notable lack of tractable talons and razor teeth, the scientists were able to interact with the subjects on a more personal level. Those who had gone near Zach and his siblings were armored, and the subjects themselves locked away in a back cage with enclosed compartments, or windows, to poke their arms through for tests or to receive food. Natural precautions taken with all dinosaurs of carnivorous persuasion, but appeared so much more barbaric when the animal inside was a scowling child of twelve.

Claire jumped when something banged against the glass, and she snapped her head around to glare at Dr. Whittle for laughing. Everyone else seemed so happy, completely unaware of the melancholic turn their boss's thoughts had taken when she'd entered only five minutes before. It wasn't unusual for her to stand and watch in silence anymore, so no one had questioned her morose silence.

Her attention drifted back to the five year old children.

Pressed against the glass was a crude drawing of a stick figure wearing white clothes- indicated by blue outlines, unfilled in- and three red lines around the head indicating hair.

"He does that, Little Lula too. They draw us all the time" Dr. Whittle informed her after sobering, watching as Gray asked Tobias to please give the drawing to Ms. Dearing. "He really likes you. He's always asking when he'll get to talk to you, when will the pretty lady come in and play. I thin..- Does Zach draw?"

Claire was grateful for the sudden change of topic, her expression noticeably becoming stricken after finding out Gray had actually asked after her. "Yes" She replied faintly.

Or he used to.  On her last visit she had walked in to the sight of him throwing his pens at the window and shrieking like a raptor, never letting anyone near him. Claire had left just as they sedated him. Noticing her disturbed expression, someone in Dr. Wu's team had joked to her that he was just being a teenager and they 'got it all the time'. He only ever calmed down fully when Claire stood by the window looking in.

"That's interesting" Dr. Whittle hummed, genuinely pleased at the news. Claire decided not to burst her bubble about the new, deliberate violence Zach had begun to display. It had scared Claire, both to see him so feral but also that his handler's had let him get that way. But drawing back to prior thoughts, she could hardly expect people to treat an anomaly like they would a Human when Zach barely classified biologically and legally. "You know, Gray likes to read. He asks for new books all the time, and we're considering giving him a tablet- Oh, and Zoe showed him her phone, and now he loves taking pictures as well as drawing. He knows all sorts about dinosaurs, knows everything about what he's augmented with plus many others, both he and Lula are very self aware, I've been meaning to ask if the same is for Zach..."

Dr.Whittle trailed off when Tobais ducked out, drawings in hand and gave Claire her's with a warm smile.

"They've drawn you a lot, Ms. Dearing" Tobais told her in a quiet tone, dark eyes gentle. "I can put this with the pile if you want, Gray won't be able to see"
With a silent nod, Claire accepted his offer and left.

When she returned to her office, there was a box of headphones on her desk. The director shot a questioning look Zara's way, and frowned at the wicked smile on her assistant's face.
"It's been a year, or well, it'll have been a year in one more week's time. I checked the calendar while you were out and double checked when Zach hatched" Out. Definitely not visiting Lula and Gray for the third time in four days. "You did say, and I thought I'd hold you to it. Although lord he doesn't look only a year old, they grow freakishly fast don't they?"

Claire tapped the box with the pads of her finger tips, contemplating something, before smiling slightly and inclining her head to Zara. "They have the growth rate closer to dinosaurs rather than Humans. But a year is a year, and I did say"

Zara's answering smile is wide and pleased.

Zach, an angry tween as an assistant Claire thought might have been named Ruth joked, had been ushered into a separate section when Claire came to give him the headphones. She turned down the armor after a moments thought, deciding that the cage was enough.

He was undeniably confused, Claire could tell, as instead of a chain mail clad scientist she walked in. In her hands not a tray for samples, but a box wrapped in purple wrapping paper with multicolored balloons decorating it. Some left over paper from a gift one of Zara's friend in accounting had sent to her daughter. It had only barely fit, and only by Claire's methodical measuring and tight wrapping ability finely turned from her prevalent perfectionist streak.

As she approached Claire studied him. He stood to her shoulder height, and while she had already known that it was entirely different approaching him and seeing how tall he stood when so close to her than through layers of strengthened glass, plastic and wire. As usual he was dressed in the plain white overalls the subjects had all been given, cotton and basic with no zips or lose strings: only elastic waist bands on ankle length slacks and thrown on shirts. Bare foot, again nothing unusual, but she did notice Zach had pen marks on his feet- colors drawn around the faint dusting of scales along his Achilles's heel and soles of his feet, moving out over his skin in patterns. Still drawing then. Still as creative as the herbivore unit.

She drew her eyes up as she came to a stop in front of the cage and smiled at him. In return he gave her his signature mouth twitch, the same one he graced her whenever he noticed her stood by the enforced window. For the longest time it was only prompted by her own greeting smile, but by the time he'd reached the appearance of an eight year old, the mouth twitch had become an instinctive reaction when her red hair and cyan eyes drifted into view against the monotonous back drop of the lab.

As she opened up her side of the window, slid the wrapped present through the caged box, a low voice asked "Where's Dr. Wu?"  

The voice was nearly unrecognizable as anything Claire had heard before; only just familiar. There was still a childish pitch to it, but it was clear puberty was beginning to set in, his voice starting to break as any boy his physical age might. The experiments had been able to speak in varying degrees of skill for a number of generations, but they had never been so low and so Human sounding. The cords of his voice were able to reach extraordinary pitches that had Claire screwing her eyes shut in agony during the times she'd walked in on a 'tantrum', and the rest of the time he was silent. So hearing him speak in something so normal made her jump. The woman looked up from the gift to the boy, and was surprised to see an expression of hurt on Zach's face.

"This... it's the anniversary of my hatching isn't it?" He murmured, waiting obediently for her to close her side before opening his.

Claire nodded, smiling again in that same robotic way. In the back of her mind Claire focused on the wording, how dismissive 'anniversary' sounded in the context of Zach's existence. "Yes, but it's called your birthday. I take it your handlers told you?"

"They did... but not Dr. Wu. Where is he? I've not seen him in two weeks and six days" Behind her Claire heard a sudden rumble of sound behind the fortified glass: the researchers talking amongst themselves with wide eyes, amazed and shocked. Claire felt the same level of surprise, staring at Zach as though he had delivered some divine prophecy. The significance of his statement no less striking than the metaphor. Hearing them too, Zach rolled his eyes. Rolled his eyes, Claire only just refrained from gaping, struck by the incredibly Human gesture.

Why hadn't she taken the time to speak to them before now?

"There's a clock and a calendar" He nodded behind her, and she turned to see that from where they were, there was indeed a clock and a calendar visible on the wall through the glass. The angle was perfect, allowing a clear view but to her eyes the numbers and words were distorted from the glass and distance.

Heightened vision. Claire quietly realised, head tilting back to Zach.

Recovering, Claire cleared her throat. "He's working on a new project now, something for the Park rather than research"

The boy- Hybrid, a long suffering voice in her head corrected- thought about this, and with a thick voice spoke up again without looking at her. "He's left. Are you going to leave too?"

"No" She promised without thinking, enraptured by the pain showing in the eyes of such a normally stoic creature. It never occurred to her that he might have some semblance of fondness for Dr.Wu. She'd always assumed that given his aggressive behavior that he resented the scientists who prodded and peered at him all day and night.

Her answer subjected Claire to a long, harsh stare from his dark eyes, before those lips flickered slightly. She watched as Zach reached in and took the box out from the compartment, and released a claw. There was a brief pause in his frame when she flinched, a heavy silence that Claire missed as her eyes fixated on the bizarre sight of the sharp claw sliding out from under an otherwise Human looking nail on his first finger- the two blending together somewhat seamlessly, as though the nail were a slightly elevated discoloration of the claw. Then in a beat, Zach shook it off and he cut open the wrapping with precision, using a level of care Claire hadn't expected.

She waited with a baited breath, and he frowned. "What are they?"

"Headphones, and this" She held up Zara's old iPod, stocked with music she had checked over. Anaconda is not an appropriate song for him, Zara. "Is an iPod, it plays music... would you like me to show you?"

Zach looked stunned, a fresh emotion Claire felt privileged to see. Then his mouth twitched oddly again, like the muscle wasn't sure what it was meant to be doing, and he nodded.

"Yes please"

Chapter Text

There was a new trainer at the raptor enclosure, a man from the navy with a wide set experience with wild pack animals. Predators mainly. His entire mo perfectly suited the work he would be performing in the raptor training program, and although she hadn't interviewed him, she had played a part in looking through and approving candidates. Of them all, he was above and beyond.

On the man's first day, Claire kept with her personal tradition of meeting each employee even if it was only for a brief time.Formally introducing herself was a must, in her opinion, and driving down to the enclosure that housed the raptors had felt no different from all the other times she had gone to welcome a new recruit: that was, until she walked through the doors of the trainer's area, and spotted the newbie sitting at the main table, sifting through a stack of files about the raptors.

The one's he would be working with hadn't hatched yet, but that was no reason not to do reading on what went on behind the scenes at the park, and Claire felt a flush of unexpected interest wash over her cheeks at this. Combined with how the light cast over his face, he set an appealing first impression.

Another worker, one she recognised- Barry was it? Fine man, dedicated to his raptors and always filed in detailed reports following precise procedure. A top worker, yearly reviews had told her- nudged the new man as she approached, and she pulled on a perfect smile as the stranger looked up. Serious expression from reading melting into something more welcoming, his back straightening as he got up out of his seat to accept her pro-offered hand.

"Claire Dearing, park operations manager" She intoned, shaking his hand. "Welcome to Jurassic World"

White teeth flashed and eyes sparkled as the man replied. "Owen Grady, it's a great opportunity to be here. Not everyday someone gives you a job working with dinosaurs"

Claire hummed, pushing down her immediate attraction. "Well you earned it, your resume was exemplary. Out of all candidates you stood out right from the start"

All rehearsed lines that she told every new comer, sometimes paraphrasing to suit the conversation, but overall the same guaranteed-to-please script. But while most of them grinned and preened at the praise, promising to not let her down and that they'd live up to their resume, Mr. Grady instead quirked his head to one side. An odd expression crossed his face, like he could almost tell this was something she said to everyone who scored a job at the park.

He let go of her hand, his warm palm leaving her's feeling cold before she dropped it back to her other, folding them neatly together at her hips.

"Nice to know" Owen casual noted, looking as though he was trying to work out some puzzle in Claire. "So, training raptors. Pretty adventurous program I gotta say"

She almost smiled and on the tip of her tongue was 'this is tame compared to some' but refrained. The Hybrid Program was confidential, with everyone involved signing strict non-disclosure papers with wild repercussions if a breach of said confidentiality was broken. Somehow Claire thought a man like Owen, who despite being a seasoned SEAL had an impression of warmth around him, might not approve of the morals of such a project. She couldn't pin point what made her think it, but there was no doubt in her mind that the instinct was right.

Sometimes Claire wondered to herself on how even she dealt with it, especially now after having made real contact with one of the subjects and holding intentions to talk to the other two. The answer was she just had to. There were no laws being broken. The subjects were treated well and she wasn't in the position to just give up her job.

"We strive for adventure here at Jurassic World" Claire recited instead. Her answer seemed sparked an odd reaction in Owen, his lips pursing and brow twitching upward.

Although her greeting was over, the manager felt compelled to stay longer, asking Owen question after question about his experience and plans.How he intended to carry out the training of the raptors and how methods used from studying other pack animals could apply to raptors: all things he had been asked and answered in the interview she'd been absent for, but he didn't seem to mind repeating himself. If anything he seemed to enjoy her curiosity, as subdued as she kept it and more time passed than she realised, the minutes ticking by at a calm pace that didn't make her feel like it was being wasted.

When she next checked her watch she realised she'd been talking to Owen, standing over what would become the new raptor enclosure where Owen and Barry would train the newly hatched, for over an hour.

"And I'm going to be late for a meeting" Claire admitted, frowning at her uncharacteristic lack of professionalism. Owen was just intriguing it seemed, enough to distact her from her strict schedule. "It was nice to meet you, Mr. Grady"

Owen nodded to her. "It's Owen, and before you go... are you doing anything later?"

The neon lights made Lula look sickly through the glass.

Somehow she'd gotten a cold, a few sniffles and sneezes there that had a facility wide clean sweep done. Staff members who had colds were told to keep away and Gray wasn't allowed near her. It was nothing to worry about. Dr. Adamczac had assured Claire when the brief was given. Lula would be spending some time in a room separate from her brother while she healed, and they were confident that the Human aspect of Lula's genetics would be strong enough to fight off the minor sneezes that one of the assistants had brought in after a visit with his sick niece.

It did mean that instead of talking face to face as Claire had done Zach, the woman had to talk to Lula through a speaker and a window, her voice fuzzy through the electronics but Lula looked thrilled. Her eyes lit up when Claire walked in to the side room, and the little girl bounded over with a frightening speed for such a small body.

"Hello" Claire greeted awkwardly, looking down at the child whom peered so adoringly up at her. She had found herself in a small observation room, longer than it was wide, on nothing but a chair in front of the window for her to sit at, and to the left a desk with a computer. The door behind her clicked shut as she smoothed out her skirt to sit.

Lula's mouth curved up into a familiar bright smile, wavy blonde hair curled around her face in an angelic manner. "Hello"

In her peripherals, Claire could see one of the assistants, Greg she thought, checking through the computer systems and the man's mouth twitched up at Claire's attempts to engage with the subject. Claire lacked the experience they had with talking to the subjects, so much smarter than their appearances implied, and unlike with Zach where she'd had the iPod to explain, she lacked any idea of what to tell Lula about.

"My name's Claire, what's yours?" The little subject laughed, shrill but dampened through the glass.

"Lula, but you knew that"

Claire smiled softly. "Yes, I did"

Lula opened her mouth to reply, air rushing in as a sign of her excitement and shoulders bunching in a startlingly childlike manner, but instead of words and an animated set of expressions a hacking cough exploded from her instead. It crackled and strained, the sound achingly familiar from painful coughs Claire could remember from when she was younger- the dry sensations and burning tremors- and Claire rose from her chair both in shock and as a reflex to escape the direction of the cough: forgetting for a second that there was thick glass between them. Alarmed eyes turned to Greg, who pressed a buzzer on the keyboard in front of him when Lula's coughing fit didn't abate. Suited people filed in, crouching by Lula, who'd begun to whine in distress, her face twisted in fear, as her small body jerked violently with each bark and the door behind Claire opened.

Alarm seizing her body, Claire backed away and turned to whomever had walked in the door, the order to help Lula sitting on her tongue: silent, and futile. Too futile for Claire to say out loud.

"Everything's fine" Dr. Adamczac, a scientist on the team Claire had not had much contact with before, with most of her interactions being with Dr. Whittle, assured her, offering the door open to her. Clearly, he wanted her to leave. "Believe it or not this is an improvement, her immune system's handling the disease well"

With one last glance over to Lula, who was making all the sounds of crying in between her thundering coughs, but without the tears. Claire felt evil for leaving, her heart aching for the little girl who'd so desperately wanted to see Claire for so long, only to have her illness stop it so cruelly short, but there was nothing she could do.

Lula couldn't speak, and thanks to her extended time with Owen, Claire now only had a fifteen minute bracket with the subjects before a two-thirty meeting. Stepping through the doors, Claire let herself be led the well walked path to the main nursery where Gray was waiting for his turn. Apparently the subjects had been told Claire was coming and would speak to them, and the pair had been excited about it all week, planning what they would ask. It was odd to Claire, to be treated like some kind of celebrity to these children, but a flattering kind of odd.

When they arrived, Gray was playing with an old kodak camera. The camera lens swung up to the door when the sound clacked, and Claire barely had time to register what was happening before the boy clicked and caught her picture. Under the kodak, his lips were pulled into an enormous grin.

"You can go in this time" Dr. Adamczac told her, looking tired and tense. In her limited experience with the man, that seemed to be his default state: exhausted and lack lustre. "Forgive me, but I need to be getting back to Lula. Dr. Whittle will be back from her break tomorrow so Tobias, if you would?"

Before Claire could say a word, Dr. Adamczac rushed out, his pace implying to her on an empathetic level that things perhaps weren't as smooth with Lula as he had previously told her, the door shutting with a hiss of air.

There were plenty of other people in the facility so she wouldn't be alone with Gray, but despite that Claire still felt as though she were on her own. There was minimal danger too, since unlike Zach, who by the age of Lula and Gray had turned aggressive, the herbivores had shown no signs of threatening behaviour. But there was something about no sterile glass barrier, or thick wired cage separating her from Gray, that daunted her more than being able to stand behind something. It broke down some shield, the thing she could hide behind. Leaving her raw to Gray's inquisitive eyes.

Tobias approached her then, dreadlocks tied back and smile ever present, and wafted his card over the first door of security her.

"This way, Ms. Dearing. I'll tell you know, Gray's really excited"

"So I was told" Claire replied, stepping cautiously into unknown territory and still shaken from seeing Lula deteriorate so quickly before her eyes. She'd seen others go through the locked door many times before, down the short corridor and through another two- she'd even been through a similar fortification going to meet Zach for the first time- but it was different experiencing it herself. Gray wasn't going to be locked away from her, he was going to be able to touch her, hug her... In the same way he'd taken a picture of her when she walked into the main lab, Gray was ready with his camera and snapped Claire just as she appeared from behind Tobias. The atmosphere of the nursery itself had, as Zach's enclosure also, none of the fresh air conditioning that the outside labs had: instead the air was heavy with humidity much like being outside on the island. If anything, the thickness seemed more prominent in the herbivore unit than the carnivore, an observation she brushed aside when the time came to initiate contact.

Clamping down her nerves, Claire once again, in the same repetitive manner that in recent months had begun to feel tiring, drew her mouth into a polite smile. "Hello Gray"

Gray bit his lip, dropping his camera down and taking her in like she was the roaring sun in the sky, an untouchable force he couldn't believe he was able to be so near to. "Hi"

Stiffly, she lowered herself to his level, resting on her knees to take in his features now not distorted by thick enforced glass. He was a child like another other, but she could see faint traces of dinosaur rough skin around his neck and ears, a small detail Claire hadn't been able to detect from so far away before.

"I'm Claire" She offered a hand, which Gray shook with a giggle, whispering out his own name in delight. His hand was cooler than her own, Claire noted and it struck her that this was the first time she had ever touched a subject. His skin was hard and slightly rubbery, but with the soft overcoat like Human skin that marked a unique mix between the coarse flesh of a dinosaur and the delicate padding of Human palms. Gray had no claws, Claire could see with a note of relief. His nails were thicker, but were just as blunt as her own, and his teeth had no threatening sharp edge.

Were it not for her knowledge of his background, the faint scales and odd sound of his unidirectional breathing- air pushing out in time with air drawn in, combining in a strange crescendo- she would have thought he was just another child who'd wandered from the park to where he wasn't meant to be.

But he was meant to be there. He was a growth in a dish that had the same spark of life as her, only without those who regarded it with the same value. Gray's worth was marked by his organs and function, and Claire felt herself wondering again whether or not the program was right.

Of course countless lives would be helped in the future by the advancements, but what would this little boy, and his sister coughing harsher and with less rest bite than any other create thanks to her two way lungs, get out of it all?

A life spent inside only three rooms, never knowing what grass felt like or how fresh air felt on his skin. It didn't seem fair, no matter how many people it helped.

A hand touched her cheek, jolting her out of her thoughts. "Are you okay?" Gray asked her, blue eyes filled with aching concern. "Are you sick like Lula? They said Lula's sick, that's why I can't see her. But I get to see you instead, which is amazing"

The red haired woman shook her head in a placating manner. "No I'm not sick, I wouldn't be allowed in here if I were. I was just thinking that's all. Now, I've been told you wanted to ask me things?"

All worry seemed to drop from the boy's face as he rushed over to the table, exchanging his camera for a tablet, and dumping himself back down beside her.

He had a lot of questions. A lot. So many Claire felt guilty when she had to interrupt his last question to tell him she had to get going, Tobias behind her assuring Gray he could see her another time. The boy seemed to take it well despite the disappointment on his face and before she left she was rewarded with another drawing he'd done for her.

This time instead of leaving it to Tobias to put in a drawer somewhere, Claire took it back to her office with her, ignoring Tobias' approving smile and how it, and the drawing, made her feel like the world was all that bit better with her having done this lovely thing. And after the first visit came another, a bombardment of questions each time, and then another to Lula, with her schedule rearranged for meetings with Zach who'd started asking after her, and then by the arrival of her date with Owen she had come to look forward to her visits with Gray, Zach and Lula.

She walked into her date with a clear plan that in her eyes would guarantee a fun time, and high hopes for the evening. Best outfit. Comfiest heels. Hair done up and make up a touch more daring than her work choices. She would enjoy herself with Owen, she promised herself that, and then she'd drop by the subjects to tell them more stories her mother had told her and Karen as children. Everything was set to be perfect.

But it wasn't. Everything was about to get horribly worse.

The night she spent tearing into her date for his shorts and downplayed manner, and getting a verbal bashing back for her finely crafted list she had spent more time on that her pride would allow her to admit- for him, and he'd thrown her care back in her face. Why couldn't he see she was invested in this? - was the night Lula collapsed and started fitting.

At the same time she angrily slammed her car door and drove back to her apartment, a bright light went out of the world. In the same morning she buried herself in work, deciding to cancel her meet with the subjects having not wanted to drag her foul mood into the facilities, was the same morning Lula's body was processed.

Samples taken. Reports written. Cause of death analysed. And the remains tossed in the incinerator with the rest of the biological waste.

The resignation of another assistant dropped on her boss's desk with hands shaking.

And around lunch time, when Claire was choosing between pawn pasta and tuna pasta, Tobias sat in front of a little boy with dark eyes hauntingly sad.

As she decided on pawn, Gray started begging for his sister.

And then crying, and screaming, and nothing would quiet him.

Unaware of it all, Claire didn't find out until she reached her desk again and finally reached down the dozens of emails that had come through to one with a subject line that simply said:

A Subject Has Expired.