FIC: Pomegranate Heart (Jurassic World, Claire/Grady, PG-13)
TITLE: Pomegranate Heart
RATING: PG-13
FANDOM: Jurassic World
PAIRING: Claire Dearing/Owen Grady
SUMMARY: Some things cannot be forgotten.
It’s on the boat back to the mainland when she finally takes off her heels. There’s blood crusted on the insole, and one of the heels is cracked.
“Well, these are ruined,” she says, and Grady looks at her with an odd kind of smile. “What?”
“Nothing,” he says, and rests his hand on the nape of her neck.
***
“What’s Persephone?” Gray asks.
Karen’s brow furrows. “What do you mean, honey?”
“It’s the name of the boat,” Zach says.
“Oh. Well, I think it’s something from Greek mythology.”
“She was a girl,” Scott says, “Persephone.”
Karen gives him a poisonous look over his tone, so Claire speaks up.
“There’s a story about her in Greek mythology,” she says. “One day, Persephone is picking flowers, when the god of the underworld, Hades, kidnaps her to make her his queen. Demeter, Persephone’s mother, is the goddess of the harvest, and when she learns her daughter is gone, she gets so sad that she stops all the crops from growing. People are starving, so Zeus, the king of the gods, tells Hades to return Persephone to her mother. But Hades is tricky, and he wants to keep Persephone, so he gives her a pomegranate. Persephone knows not to eat anything in the underworld, but she is so hungry.... She eats three pomegranate seeds, and, since she ate food of the underworld, she becomes bound to spend three months every year with her king.”
“So she has go to hell all the time just to be with her boyfriend?” Zach says. “That sucks.”
“Yeah, well, love’s funny,” Karen says.
***
Once they reach the mainland, they buy new clothes at a shop near Claire’s favorite hotel, then go up to their rooms to shower and change. The tile is stained red and brown with blood and dirt. Claire scrubs until her skin is as white as the porcelain beneath her feet, and then leaves the shower for Grady, who still smells like gasoline.
Claire realizes, as her skin begins to cool, that she is in more pain than she’s ever been in her life. She has road rash on her elbows and knees and shoulders, and the muscles in her legs and chest throb. There are cuts on her face and burns on her hands from the flare.
She is still in her towel, water dripping from her wet hair onto her clean skin, when Grady emerges from the shower.
“I would have thought you’d be dressed by now,” he says. “Are you okay?”
“No,” she says. He comes closer to see what’s the matter, and she takes him by the hips and pulls him down onto the bed, down on top of her. He exhales sharply, surprised, and her hands are on his body and their mouths are together and Claire just closes her eyes and disappears.
***
They can’t get a flight out of Costa Rica until the end of the week. They languish in the hotel room, watching American TV shows dubbed in Spanish.
“I can’t believe you don’t speak Spanish,” Grady says. “You live in Costa Rica.”
Not anymore, she thinks. She says, “Translate for me.”
“I like it better this way,” Zach says, so they just watch with the inscrutable soundtrack. It’s musical, and after a while Claire doesn’t mind.
***
At night, Claire welcomes Grady into her bed. They make love desperately, like the building is burning down around them. They’re running away together, Claire thinks. Soon they’ll be in a different country, in a different life.
Claire traces the curve of Grady’s pectoral muscles with her index finger.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at you without remembering that night at the park,” she says.
He wraps his arm around her. “Try.”
***
They walk the shop-lined streets. Grady buys her a pomegranate. The man in the shop takes a huge blade and splits the fruit, spilling its blood red seeds over the cutting board. He scoops up the seeds into a paper bag, which he hands to Claire, his hands stained red.
Claire looks at Grady, aware of his eyes on her. She smiles, and sets a pomegranate seed on her tongue.