FIC: Girl on Fire (Jurassic World, Claire Dearing/Owen Grady, R)
TITLE: Girl on Fire
RATING: R
FANDOM: Jurassic World
PAIRING: Claire Dearing/Owen Grady
SUMMARY: Post-film, Claire finds herself adrift.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: Written for goddesspharo’s 2015 yuletide. Thanks so much to Carla for the beta.
There were burns on her hands from the flare. She hadn’t felt them until they were on the boat back to the mainland, wrapped in a blanket, thigh-to-thigh with Grady. She looked down at the blisters, red and purple, her brow furrowed, and wondered how she hadn’t noticed them before. Grady looked over, gently took her wrists in his big hands, frowned over them.
“Does it hurt?” he asked.
She pursed her lips. “Which part?”
***
Claire found a black suit at a shop near the port.
“You shouldn’t do this,” Grady said.
“I have to.”
In her black suit, with her hands still bandaged, Claire addressed the press.
“This was an unforeseen anomaly. My thoughts are with the families of the people who lost their lives.”
The words resounded hollowly in her chest. Reporters shouted questions; flashbulbs crackled and popped, the light blinding. Claire heard it all, saw it all, as though she was underwater-everything was dim and far away. She took a breath, turned her back. No questions.
***
Claire kissed Karen and the boys goodbye, watched them get into a cab. Grady was behind her, standing on the curb in the shadow of a bodega’s canopy. Claire turned to him as the cab pulled away.
“Stop it,” she said.
He thrust his hands in his pockets, frowned over her. “Stop what? I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re sorry for me,” Claire said.
Grady’s mouth twisted. “Let’s go.”
***
Claire looked out the window of the hotel room at the Costa Rican shoreline. Waves lapped up on the beach; tourists in bathing suits walked on the surf, bending to pick up seashells or splash in the cool, blue water. She squinted, wondering if she could see Isla Nublar, but of course that was ridiculous; all she could see was the ocean stretching out to the horizon.
“You’re on TV again,” Grady said.
Claire turned to where he was sitting on the bed, the odd blue glow of the television reflecting on his face. She hated watching herself on TV; now she looked so pale in her black suit, her red hair crinkling around her white face. The ticker at the bottom of the screen read: TRAGEDY AT JURASSIC WORLD / PARK MANAGER CLAIRE DEARING SPEAKS / 34 DEAD AT COSTA RICAN TOURIST ATTRACTION
“Turn it off,” Claire said, and immediately the screen went dark.
“We should do something,” Grady said. “Get away.”
“There is no away,” Claire said, pulling at a cuticle. “This is ... it’s everywhere.”
“Yeah, for a few days. Next news cycle, people will have forgotten all about it.”
“But I won’t.”
Grady placed his hand over hers. “Me neither.”
***
They had no luggage to check. Grady took off his vest and boots at the checkpoint; Claire took off her heels, watched them on the conveyer belt, disappearing from sight. She wished they wouldn’t come out on the other side, that they’d be gone forever. One less reminder of that night.
Claire bore the scrutiny of the customs agent. Probably the hard look in his eyes was all in her imagination, but what if it wasn’t? What if he knew? What if everyone knew?
How long would it take them to forget?
Grady put his hand on her back, gently propelled her forward. She could have kissed him.
Claire made Grady take the aisle seat. She looked out the window as the plane left the earth, her face hidden behind a curtain of red hair.
***
“You don’t have to let us stay here,” Claire said. “I know things are...not ideal.”
Karen hugged her. “You’re my little sister, Claire. I’m always here for you.” Her eyes moved past the kitchen door and into the dining room, where Grady was regaling the boys with a story that required a lot of full body gesturing. “And maybe it’ll be good for us to have you here. Both of you.”
Claire watched the boys laugh with Grady. She felt a flush travel from her chest to her neck to her cheeks.
***
They were sharing the guest room. Grady hesitated before the bed. “Do you want me to sleep on the floor?”
Claire hugged the covers to her. “No.”
He came into her bed. They stayed face to face, breath to breath for a moment before Claire leaned in and kissed him. She held onto him, holding him tight against her; his fingers traced the curve of her neck, the softness of her breast. Claire pushed him to his back, slipping their clothes off, flesh to flesh. She mounted him, squeezing her eyes shut, feeling him inside of her, his hands on her hips, trying to guide her tempo, but she needed too badly. Claire pushed herself to the perfect rhythm, her fingertips scratching against Grady’s shoulders, his sharp collarbones, stretched perpendicular to his central axis, like a crucifix. She bowed to his altar, biting her lip as sensation flooded her. Somewhere she felt Grady shiver, heard him say her name.
He put his arms around her, held her in place. Claire pressed her forehead to his shoulder, and wished for sleep.
***
The water rinsing her hands trickled red. Grady looked over her shoulder.
“Maybe you should see a doctor,” he said.
Claire watched their reflections in the mirror over the sink. She turned off the tap.
“I don’t think so,” she said. In the mirror she looked pale, tired. Next to her, Grady was so brown and composed. His hands didn’t shake.
He didn’t take his eyes off her. Claire smiled at him in the mirror, watched her eyes in her reflection until she stopped shaking. She turned to him.
“So,” she said, “what are your plans for today?”
“Gray wants me to teach his guinea pig to sit, so we’ll try that for a few hours, I guess.” He took her by the hips, pulled her so their pelvises were flush. It was aggressive, but in a nice way. Claire rested her hands on his chest. “What are you going to do?”
Claire tapped her fingers on Grady’s chest. There was a pinkish spot where her palms rested; she tried to ignore it.
“I don’t know,” she said.
***
All of Claire’s belongings were abandoned on Isla Nublar, but Karen’s clothes weren’t too bad a fit. She dressed in a cowl-necked sweater, dove grey, and jeans with flannel lining. She put on boots and gloves and went outside with the family.
Grady was in the yard. He was hunched behind an icy barricade, dodging Gray’s snowballs. Karen stood on the porch with a steaming mug between her hands.
Karen bumped Claire’s shoulder with her own. “Hey, stranger. You look just like me.”
Claire frowned. “I look like Mom.”
Karen rolled her eyes. “Okay.” She smiled as Zach and Gray pinned Grady to the ground, pelting him with snowballs. “He’s great with the kids.” She gave Claire a glance out of the side of her eye. “How is he with you?”
Claire felt her cheeks burn. “He’s great,” she admitted.
“But you’re not great.”
“No, I am. We’re great; I’m great with him.”
“But you’re not great with yourself.”
Claire felt as though she had just swallowed a snowball whole. The cold rested in her stomach.
“How can I be?” she asked. She shook her head before Karen could console her. “Don’t.”
***
Grady wrapped her hands in gauze.
“You’re surprisingly good at that,” Claire said. The burns felt better already.
“I have had first aid training,” he said. “It’s necessary to the job. This one time, Echo took a talon to the face, and I had to-”
He stopped, mouth pursed, and Claire felt like she had on the ship back to Costa Rica, like she had no sea legs-adrift. She guessed they both were. She put her arms around him; sometimes all you could do was hold on.
***
Claire sat curled on the couch in her pajamas, flipping through the channels. CNN was showing Red Cross boats docking at Isla Nublar; the ticker at the bottom of the screen read: RESCUE WORKERS AT JURASSIC WORLD. Claire turned up the volume.
“Rescue agencies have sent crews to Costa Rica to contain the disaster at Jurassic World, and to bring bodies back to-”
A manic giggle erupted from the kitchen, interrupting the reporter. Claire turned her head; Grady was holding Gray upside down while Zach tickled him. Claire turned the television off, and went to join them.
***
The blisters wouldn’t heal, and Grady was a pain about it. As in most things, eventually he wore her down.
Claire sat on the doctor’s exam table, waiting. Grady stood beside her, his eyes traveling the anatomical models lining the sink.
“I can go to the doctor by myself,” she insisted. “I’m not ten.”
“I assumed that,” Grady said, “but you never ask a woman her age.”
Claire tried to be annoyed, but it was difficult. Grady grinned at her, and she felt herself smiling back.
The doctor came in. He took her hands, turned them over to see her palms. He smelled like soap and his hands were soft.
“Surgery,” he said.
***
They sat bundled under blankets on the couch: Karen, the boys, Claire, and Grady. Claire didn’t recognize the movie they had put in, and she hadn’t been paying close enough attention to know what was going on. But that was okay; the pictures were pretty and the soundtrack was nice. Sometimes you could only drift along until things started making sense again.
Gray’s little socked feet were tucked against her leg, and Zach was actually smiling. Grady put his arm around Claire’s shoulder, and she relaxed into the embrace.
***
Claire could imagine herself in surgery, arms stretched out to her sides like a crucifixion, the translucent mask over her mouth and nose, eyes closed in sleep. Everything would be cast blue, like it was underwater.
The medicine from the IV burned under her skin. Her vision wavered. Grady laid his hand over the back of hers. She couldn’t feel the pain, but she could feel that.
“Everything’s going to be okay,” he said, and she nodded. Yes.