Chapter Text
I really love your fics so I was wondering if you’ll pleaseee write a clexa jurassic park au Tks
“Most meat eaters walked on two feet. This made them faster and left their hands free to grab their prey,” the professor explained, clicking the pointer so that the page changed. “Most plant eaters walked on four feet to better carry their heavy bodies. Some plant eaters could balance on two feet for a short time.”
“What about T-Rex?”
“What about them?”
“When do they show up and did they hunt humans?”
“Here we have the first instance of failure to read the material,” she shook her head and walked in front of the lecture hall.
Almost two hundred students watched her as she cross her arms and smiled as she shook her head. This was her favorite misconception, and her favorite way to tease an entire group of freshmen. The professor leaned against the desk at the front of the room, with a giant projector screen displaying a large graph behind her. She felt powerful like that.
“Millions of years separate the faintest inkling of humans and dinosaurs. We probably wouldn’t be sitting here today if we coexisted during the same time period. Not even because of the sheer amount of predators,” she explained before clicking through a few slides until she came to the graph she wanted. “There is a little gap in the estimates, but the Earth had about fifteen to thirty percent less oxygen than it does now. That means about five times the amount of Carbon Dioxide existed, which is thought to have contributed to the fact that everything was so damn big back then. Yes?”
“Could dinosaurs exist now?”
“No.”
From the back of the lecture hall, a gentleman smiled and watched the professor push herself up from leaning and begin to walk around, emphatically explaining with her hands so that every set of eyes was trained on her, riveted by her passion and explanations.
As the professor moves around the class, he melts into the crowd, unnoticed in the sea of eyes, but still, they are just like the kids around him, glued to the woman who is so excited, she has to push her glasses up on her nose from time to time as she explains, who has to shove her hands in her back pockets to keep them from gesturing to explain magnitude and such.
“That wraps up week seven,” the professor offered as the familiar shuffling that indicated the end of the allotted hour told her. “Remember, next week we will be tackling differentiation and specialization! If you close your eyes and sniff the air you can smell it. Tests are coming. Start preparing.”
Melting into the crowd, he pulls the phone out of his pocket and makes a phone call as the sea of students rush past him.
“She’s the one.”
XXXXXXXXXX
Hot as all hell, the day hung there, dirty and thick and angry at nothing in particular. The tropical afternoon made it impossible to breathe, while the sun itself pulled every ounce of sweat it could from bodies as sacrifice for existing. It was a warped version of the angels share if she ever heard it.
From her spot against the fence, Clarke ran her forearm over her eyes and pushed the sticky ends of hair from where they stuck, though nothing truly helped.
She was familiar with heat and sweat.
Her eyes never stopped moving, following a herd moving through the upper wall of the far valley before a truck pulled up and stole her attention.
“Dinner is served,” Raven called happily as she hopped out and slammed the door. Some animal squealed and complained in the crate in the bed.
“That’s my line,” Jasper complained as he parked.
“You’re late.”
“We had a little problem with the new pens over in quadrant Charlie,” the driver gave a pointed look to the girl in the brace.
“That’s what you want to hear when you’re surrounded by creatures that are literally faster and bigger and sharper than anything else on the planet.”
“Listen, I fixed it. There was an over–” Raven tried to defend herself.
“Please don’t do the engineer stuff again,” Clarke sighed as she grunted and opened the truck lift.
“I need to take a look at the wiring for the converter panel over here. Thought I’d catch the show first.”
“It’s not a show.”
“Sure it’s not,” Raven teased, earning a smile. “Release the pig.”
“She’s not a toy. She’s a dinosaur. I can’t make her put on a show, no matter what Jaha thinks I’m capable of.”
“You got the raptors to behave.”
“I got a pack of starving animals to believe that I was the only reason they could eat. I’m a long way off of–”
“Okay, none of that boring animal junk. Can you make them ride tricycles yet?” Raven interrupted, leaning against the truck as the other two carried the giant crate with the help of the keepers at the paddock.
“Did you fix the island’s surge problem yet?”
“I have a feeling you’re closer to the tricycles than I am,” Raven acknowledged before heaving herself up the first few steps toward the observation deck.
From atop the stand, the three stood there and watched, waiting for the beast to show.
“I haven’t seen her since the last trainer…” Jasper began before trailing off when he looked at Clarke. “Who really wasn’t as good as you, and had it coming, I guess.”
“Total asshat,” Raven agreed.
The trainer shook her head and crossed her arms, leaning back and waiting for the inevitable. The other two leaned a little closer until everything stilled. The ground shook. The trees parted and trembled. The pig squealed and fought to climb a wall it hand no chance of making a foot up.
And then nothing.
A few heartbeats went by, and everything tentatively resumed itself, the world kept turning, the sky kept sitting there, the clouds yawned.
The growl was quiet, subtle, melting into the world of the island. Clarke heard it though as she scanned the tree line. A few seconds later, it burst forth, teeth glistening and legs churning with all its might before eight inch teeth serrated dinner and swallowed it in two gulps.
“Holy fuck,” Raven and Jasper breathed in unison, unable to blink or take their eyes from the dinosaur below.
It let out a long roar, that shook the world and echoed from the stars, that brought quiet to the island for a long moment, as if everyone knew this was different.
“Yup,” Clarke chuckled as she made her way down the steps. “Buy me a drink at the canteen. I’m thirsty as hell.”
XXXXXXXXXX
For a full minute, Lexa stared at the stranger who now sat on the other side of the desk at her office. If she had been the type to be amused at such jokes, she was certain she would have laughed for the entirety of the pause that settled itself in the room quite comfortably. Instead she settled for quiet and a disbelieving stare that turned into an incredulous lean back in her chair, oddly disappointed the the meeting about potential funding to continue her dig in China was a ruse for a madman’s stupid prank.
“I do need you to say something, Dr. Woods. I have a few other appointments before I head back…”
“To your island,” she supplied, slightly amused.
“Yes. I leave in the morning.”
“To go back to your island of dinosaurs.”
“Correct.”
“An island that has genetically modified, brought back from extinction after millions and millions of years, dinosaurs, that used science which I can only imagine is still light years away from being stable or even… real…. that Island?”
“Yes,” Thelonious Jaha nodded with a warm smile, watching as the scientist leaned forward once again and tried to form more words to express her disbelief.
“You have to go back to the island with… what? Triceratops? and let me guess, you have… What? Ornithopoda? Just… running around?”
“We do have a nice little collection of those. Quite gentle creatures. My favorite though,” he explained, crossing his leg and folding his hands over his lap, “I think are the Apatosaurus. Did you know that they fight like giraffe’s often?”
“Often,” Lexa barked a laugh and caught herself before sitting up a bit straighter and blanking her face from the outburst. She pushed up her glasses and took a deep breath before a giggle escaped once again. “Often this happens. That Apatosaurus fight. Like giraffes.”
“Dr. Woods, I came to you with a serious business proposition, one that I think is more than fair–”
“You want to visit your fantasy island that is populated by dinosaurs brought back from extinction by DNA collecting and replicating methods which are… impossible at best… to study and monitor your collection… or real, live dinosaurs. Is that a good summation, Mr. Wells?”
“Fairly fair, I should say,” he agreed, smiling at her kindly.
“Mr. Wells, the wealthiest man in the world, spent his money making dinosaurs,” Lexa shook her head and whistled. “Well, I wouldn’t have guessed that one. But if you’ll excuse me, Mr. Wells. I have a class at three thirty I should prepar–”
While she spoke, she watched him reach toward his briefcase, which she assumed meant he was ready to depart after she rudely berated his craziness. Instead, a stack of pictures slid across the expanse of her desk.
“Those are not doctored in the slightest, Dr. Woods,” he explained as the paleontologist surveyed the array without picking one up, leaning closer than she would have liked to pretend. “I approached you because you are the best in your field, the most well-respected and honored scientist in the study of evolution and especially paleontology, and many of your theories have not only proven true, but also helpful in the development of behavior models of our subjects.”
As Lexa picked up a picture finally, her guest stood and watched her squint, trying to find the falsehood.
“My terms are simple. Just come see the park, Dr. Woods, and the money will be made available in a grant the second you step back off of the plane in this city.”
A plane ticket made its way to the desk beside the images. All the doctor could do was stare back at the man who placed it there before her eyes were drawn back to the image in her hand. It was impossible. There was no way.
“If you have any questions, my business card is here,” he smiled and pulled it from his jacket pocket. “I hope to see you soon, Dr. Woods. We could really use your expertise.”
Still stunned and unsure what to say, Lexa heard him leave as she leaned back in her chair and swiveled away from her door, holding what looked the picture of a pterodactyl soaring. She shook her head to get the inkling of belief from taking root before she picked up the business card.
XXXXXXXXXX
From behind her sunglasses, Clarke watched the small prop plane land and turn around at the end of the small runway. The metal of the jeep was hot against her hip, but still, she leaned there and waited for the professor who was coming to tell her how to do her job, as if training or working with animals could be taught in a classroom, as if it could be taught by a bone hunter who wrote articles and–
“Holy shit,” she whispered to herself as the door finally opened and the dorky, middle-aged professor with a paunch belly and affinity for wearing tweed and smoking pipes turned out to be a ridiculous beautiful, legs-straight-from-Olympus, short-shorts wearing, siren of a there’s-no-way-she’s-a-doctor, doctor.
It took a moment, but the trainer swallowed quickly and crossed her arms, not letting the momentary distraction keep her away from indignation too long.
“So that’s the person that’s going to tell you what to do,” Raven observed as she leaned over the top railing of the Jeep.
Clarke pursed her lip and crossed her arms tighter around herself.
“She’s here to study and offer feedback.”
“Looks like just your type.”
“I don’t have a type.”
“You do,” her friend chuckled. “Too good for you and unattainable.”
Before she could argue the point, the newest arrival shouldered her bag and made her way from the tarmac. The closer she got, the more Clarke was vividly aware of how right the engineer was, and how much it bothered her.
The tan of her legs, the way her sleeves were rolled up, the old baseball hat that betrayed hair that lingered somewhere between chestnut and auburn, that curled up near her ears in the heat. Clarke was taken with her jaw and her collarbones, though she would never admit it.
“Hello,” the professor smiled awkwardly.
“Dr. Woods, this is Clarke Griffin, our trainer–
“Handler,” Clarke corrected.
“Of the dinosaurs,” Lexa took the hand offered to her and shook it before pulling off her sunglasses and tucking them into her shirt. “Because there are dinosaurs here.”
Her eyes made Clarke gulp, her words made her smile.
“Yes ma’am. I handle the dinosaurs.”
With a polite shake of her hand, Lexa shook her head and sighed as it dropped, still almost amused at the situation.
“If there are dinosaurs, I can’t imagine they handle well.”
“All animals handle well enough if you listen to them.”
“These would be multi-ton creatures that have millions of years of evolution and survival skills–”
“Two minutes on the island, and you’re calling my job a bunch of useless garbage,” Clarke inhaled deeply and nodded to herself. “You could at least wait to tell me how to do my job until after you see me in action, Professor.”
“I’m… I didn’t. I’m not here to tell you how to do your job.”
“Good.”
“I think we got off on the wrong foot–”
“I think it’s just fine. You’ll be gone in a few days and that’s fine enough,” Clarke opened the back door and motioned for her to get in.
Still distracted by the blonde and the lips and the words that came out of them, Lexa furrowed before slowly crawling in the back seat of the Jeep. She put her sunglasses back on and fanned herself through her shirt.
“Hi. I’m Raven. Head Engineer, persistent tag-along,” the girl in the passenger seat turned around and held out her hand. “You met our resident surly handler.”
“Lexa.”
With a smile that grew larger as she took in the newcomer, Lexa watched Raven turn around and say something to Clarke that was eclipsed with the roar of the engine back to life. Raven’s laugh was silent though her head tilted back as if she were enjoying herself.
Lexa leaned back in the seat as they began to rumble along through half a road into the jungle. All she could wonder was why and how she ended up here.
The jungle was thick and lush, sprouting up on both sides, blotting out the sun so that it came down in little shots of pure gold through the canopy. Lexa jumbled in the back over the uneven path that was barely a road to start with and more of a trail that was confiscated by the trees every chance it got.
When they emerged, Lexa wasn’t ready. The sunlight blinded her for a moment before it all registered and she saw them.
From the driver’s seat, Clarke looked at the professor in the rearview mirror, the astonishment catching again. She exchanged a look with Raven who shook her head, but that didn’t stop her.
Lexa didn’t notice they weren’t moving. She noticed the articulation of the spine of the stegosaurus. She noticed the sheer size of the apatosaurus. In a flash, she peeled off the sunglasses and leaned closer over the edge of the vehicle, gripping it tightly before murmuring to herself that it was impossible. As far as the view stretched, as far as the eye could see, nothing but life existed, pure, primeval live.
“Well, what do you think?”
“That’s… Those are…” Lexa shook her head. In a second, Lexa dug in her bag and slipped on a pair of large, round glasses.
“You didn’t think that it was real?”
“How can it be real?”
“Magic,” Clarke grinned, amused at herself.
“Those are… those are… Those are…”
“Yeah.”
“A doctor,” Raven rolled her eyes. “She doesn’t even know what those are.”
“Can we…? What? How?”
“Mr. Wells is going to meet us at the main property,” Clarke said before starting the engine once again.
“Can’t we stay with them?”
The amazement was infectious, and Clarke couldn’t remember losing it, though she did in the grime of her day-to-day life. Raven was right. She had a type, which apparently included hot professors with big glasses and old baseball hats and legs that were godly.
“You’ll have plenty of time,” Clarke promised.
Lexa didn’t hear anything. She stared, wide-eyed and blown away by the giants that walked along the valley floor. She was certain her heart didn’t beat at all the entire trip.
XXXXXXXXXX
The science, the show, the behind the scenes parts, Lexa was absolutely intrigued by, swallowed up in it the moment the handler and the engineer dropped her off at the main entrance.
Before she knew it, the day was over and her notebook was filled with notes and questions and ideas and observations, and she hadn’t even made it back out to the park that blew her mind.
“Finally escaping the lab, professor?” a familiar voice greeted her as Lexa attempted to make her way toward her room to try to type up her notes and see what else she wanted to look into in the morning. She had stacks of reading the doctors lent her so that she could be up to date on their findings. It was highly classified and she had to sign a million contracts just to read them, but she looked forward to it.
“I think I could live in there,” she confessed, head still twirling slightly.
“Where are you heading?” Raven asked, walking alongside the doctor, dragging her leg gently, appreciative that she slowed slightly.
“Just back to my room. I’m supposed to have dinner with some of the scientists in an hour to go–”
“You don’t want to do that.”
“I don’t?”
“Come slum it with the hired hands. I promise it’ll be way better.”
“I’m not sure your friend likes me very much,” Lexa remembered, adjusting her bag on her shoulder and pushing up her glasses. “And you’re not exactly a hired hand.”
“We all are in our own ways for Jaha. Trust me. Even you are. You just don’t know it yet.”
All she wanted was to shower and go back to her room, and yet Lexa decided that detoxing from the science, from the pounding feeling in her head that came from the impossible existing, it was too much.
“Plus, Clarke doesn’t warm up often to people. You can’t take it personally. She’s an animal person.”
“I don’t know that I’d consider these animals.”
“You have a lot to learn, doc.”
The little cantina was a slice of actual life in the middle of what felt like the Twilight Zone. Perched on the far side of the main compound, behind the employee’s only fence, leaning against what was left of an almost drained lake, the little open, sided hut was the nightly gathering place for everyone. Clarke enjoyed it as much as she could, though it made her feel as if she was missing out on actual life, far away, away from the tiny dome of the island.
The sun hung around, lazy and disinterested in leaving the day to give into the night. The big, fluffy clouds caught on fire and became embers, while the people below sipped drinks and ate from the communal buffet.
The addition of a stranger had everyone awake and buzzing. The little staff were all experts, all knowledgeable, all adventurous and running from things, and yet as tough as they strived to be, any kind of newness, of new person, made them yearn for the real world.
Clarke avoided it as much as possible. Something about a new person reminded her what she was running from, why she escaped from real life and wound up in this zoo.
She knew what Raven was doing, and Clarke wanted nothing to do with it.
The back porch looked out onto the field that led into the trees. From atop the slope she sat and drank the beer and let it cool her down, a near impossible feat in the weather.
“I think we got off on the wrong foot,” a voice behind her offered. “After meeting with Jaha, I understand why.”
Clarke didn’t move, didn’t say anything. She just took another drink and listened to the noises of the world beyond the tree line.
“I don’t want to tell you how to do your job. I came to study behaviors, not to… to… train them. I told him that’s impossible, and he said you said the same thing.”
Wringing her fingers, Lexa ran her hand up her neck and tried to think of what else to say, hoping not to do anything else to piss off the person she’d be working with for the next week.
“Anyway. That’s all I wanted to say.”
“Would you like a drink, Dr. Woods?” Clarke offered without turning around.
Somewhat relieved, the professor smiled to herself before grabbing the bottle offered and taking the seat beside the lounging handler.
“Lexa. You can call me Lexa.”
“You survived your first day. That’s impressive.”
“I don’t know how you do it every day. How long has it been?”
“About sixteen months.”
“Goodness.”
Both drank and stared at the sunset while the jukebox played something behind them. Clarke sighed and relaxed further while Lexa leaned forward and listened beneath the noise to what was happening out there.
“The Diplocodus sing at night,” Clarke offered.
“Like whales.”
“Yeah, something like that.”
From across the cantina Raven watched the two sitting on the back porch and congratulated herself on a job well done. It was no surge-proofed server system, but it was something.
XXXXXXXXXX
For two days, Lexa soaks up everything that she can. She can’t imagine her eyes being any wider at every glance and nook and cranny. The entirety of the island is mesmerizing. For nearly four hours just one day, she spends sitting in a Jeep on the edge of a field observing. She filled up three notebooks in the short amount of time.
As much time as she spends observing, a certain handler spends just as much observing the professor. It isn’t on purpose, just always seems to work out that way. Something about the nerdy, quiet, passionate, smart, funny, kind… and the list raged on as Clarke tried to make an excuse for her gazing. Something about her just distracted Clarke at inconvenient moments, had her spilling words out of her mouth, even when she thought she was being quiet.
“Are you busy, Professor?” Clarke realized she was asking as she stumbled upon Lexa at the cage for check ups.
She’d meant to walk by, to leave her with possibly just a wave, while she assisted the vet with some notes. Of course, Clarke was suddenly a mess, and very much angry at her best friend for planting seeds that actually took in the arid desert that was her mind.
“Depends on what you may have for me today,” Lexa smiled in that way that felt like dew on ankles at dawn.
“I don’t think you’ve gotten a proper introduction to what I do.”
“Do I finally get to go into the employees only section that’s hidden behind those high walls and heavy doors?”
“No, but I promise you’ll have a better time than examining with Dr. Lame.”
“Dr. Lima is going to give me my first contact with dinosaurs.”
Clarke smiled to herself and flicked the keys in her hand.
“Trust me,” Clarke offered. “I rarely disappoint.”
The ride to the southern side of the island was bumpy and even worse than the one from the airport, but Lexa held on and for some unknown reason, trusted the handler. She regretted her decision precisely six minutes into the trip as she was nearly bounced out of her seat, earning just a grin from the driver who shrugged and adjusted her sunglasses.
Far in the horizon, clouds emerged from the horizon, angry and black, contrasting perfectly with the bright white-blue of the clear sky. Lexa shielded her eyes as they hopped along and recognized the storm coming in the way the breeze shifted and then calmed to almost nothing.
“How far are we?”
“Can’t you enjoy the ride?”
“Has anyone?” she retorted. “There’s a storm coming.”
“It hasn’t hit the first set of islands yet. We won’t see that for another hour or two,” Clarke promised as the Jeep slowed and stopped.
“Now you’re a meteorologist?”
“I’d like you a lot better if you were nicer to me,” the handler grumbled, pulling herself up by the crossbar and sliding out of the rover. Before Lexa could muster a reply, the blonde shouldered her bag and walked around, towards the front.
Half tripping and half afraid of being left, Lexa scrambled out after Clarke.
“I’m plenty nice to you,” she argued, pushing up her glasses as the tall grass tickled her bare legs. “You’re the one that’s rude to me.”
“I brought you out here, didn’t I?”
Lexa almost slammed into Clarke’s back, she stopped so quickly. Humming to herself, she met the challenging blue eyes and a smirk and swallowed deeply, blaming the humidity most of all.
“Yes, but you’re very surly, did you know that?”
“Surly.”
“Surly.”
“I don’t mean to be, it’s just… people talk a lot, don’t they?” Clarke asked, almost too honest and real, such a flip that it caught Lexa slightly off balance. “I don’t like wasted words.”
All she could do was follow down the faintest semblance of a trail. She wanted to ask more, but she felt like they were all wasteful kinds of words, no matter how she flipped them around and examined their surfaces in her head.
“We don’t breed, we reproduce,” Clarke explained as she came to a stop finally, digging through her bag. “Which makes herd dynamics easier.” She let out a low whistle.
For a moment, nothing happened.
The trees jostled, the shrubs moved, the earth shook slightly. With a squeal, a blur emerged and rammed into Clarke’s side, knocking her over in a fit of actual laughter. All Lexa could do was watch as the baby stood atop her and nudged her with a dull snout, rooting under her arm.
The trees moaned and came down to their side a few seconds later as a full grown triceratops came forward, timid and waiting at the edge. Lexa took a step back, eyes wide. She’d been close to the specimens before, but behind the glass back at the lab, in the paddocks used for observation.
“Okay, okay, enough,” the handler shoved at the teenage rhino sized creature that hovered over her. “Easy there buddy. You’re getting bigger and stronger.”
“That’s a…” Lexa trailed off slightly before she felt a giant breath on her shoulder and wet, sloppy lips on her shoulder. A horn met her eyes when she turned toward the adult.
“Yeah. It is,” Clarke chuckled.
Gone was the tightness of her shoulders, the defensiveness of her face. Clarke was a new person, full of life and joy. She righted herself despite the insistence of the animal that nudged her hips and ribs.
“Looks like Doreen likes you.”
“Doreen?” Lexa swallowed and met the large, doleful eyes of the thing that nipped at her shoulder, covering her in slobber.
“I like giving them old lady names. They remind me of old ladies. Nice and gentle, would give you hard candies,” Clarke grunted as she pushed back against the newly forming horns on the baby as it lifted her. “But get them mad, and they’ll take you to town with a wrath of many years lived.”
“Can I…”
“She doesn’t bite.”
“Just slobbers.”
“I thought they’d be a good way to properly introduce you to the real thing. This is what I do,” Clarke laughed as she got pushed again by the antsy little critter who came up to almost her shoulders. “They’re real and alive, and have personalities. You hypothesize on what makes them do what they do.”
She ran her hand along the plate of the dinosaur’s shell, feeling the unique texture, smiling to herself as she did.
“Who is that?” Lexa asked, nudging her chin at the thing still nudging Clarke.
“CJ.”
“CJ. Not a very good old lady name.”
“Clarke Junior,” she explained, blushing slightly at the admission. “I never thought I’d have to explain that to anyone.”
“She definitely has your legs.”
“I think she takes after my personality.”
A slobbery nose dug into Clarke’s bag, and Lexa grinned at the display.
It took impending clashes of thunder for Clarke to convince the good professor to retreat back to the main part of the park. It took a promise of taking her to see the herds on the southside of the river to get her to not mope.
The entire ride back, Lexa raved, and asked a million questions, her eagerness overpowering her fear of the weather and her worry about the ethics and implications of what seeing an actual dinosaur in real life, would mean. Clarke just smiled and answered what she could, amused at the way in which this girl was absolutely in love with the science of it.
XXXXXXXXXX
As the rain started to fall, they dashed into the cantina and still, Lexa couldn’t stop talking, couldn’t stop gushing. Clarke realized it was maybe the best thing she’d ever done, to get a girl like that so excited and alive. She didn’t know how, but she liked it.
Gradually, the evening grew later, the rain came hard, the water coming down in buckets and the lightning flashing. Everyone emptied out as the lights flickered. Clarke was exhausted, but in no way eager to miss a second of Lexa, and she hated Raven for it.
“So we’ve made it clear that you love this, but you never told me why you study bones,” Clarke finally ventured, balancing the beer bottle on her knee as she leaned against the wall in their little nook.
“You never told me why you’re a handler,” Lexa countered, pushing up her glasses before tilting her head back for a long swig.
It was the drink and the hour, but Clarke let her eyes linger too long on the slope of her neck and shoulders.
“You first.”
“Fine,” the professor finally sighed with a grin. “I just like that for something so old, we don’t know anything about it. All of the information is there, we just have to find it. It’s a giant game. And I like hunting for them.”
“It was the cool hats and the digging, right?”
“And the computer models. That’s what really sold me.”
“I’m serious.”
“I went to the museum when I was a kid. My dad didn’t hang around much, but I did skip school and he took me to the museum, and we learned about dinosaurs. After that, he always sent me something about dinosaurs when he could. I don’t know where he went,” she shrugged. “Just stopped coming around, but I don’t know. The dinosaurs stuck.”
“See? That’s a much more human answer.”
“I’m human.”
“You use the scientific name for things and speak in numbers. You’re far from human,” Clarke chuckled and earned a look. She earned a blush and leaned across the table slightly, propping her cheek up and really looking at her.
“Tell me your deep, dirty secrets then,” Lexa finally managed.
“I’m boring. Good mom, good dad. I just always liked animals, and I didn’t like school. I did odd jobs. Horse trainer when I got out of high school. Dog and obedience classes. I joined the circus for a bit.”
“You’re lying.”
“Yeah, a little,” she grinned.
“I went to school to be a large animal vet, and I worked at a zoo for a long while. And then I just… My dad got sick, and I got an offer from Jaha that I jumped at to get away from home.”
“That sounds more like it.”
“Have you ever held your hand up to a tiger’s paw?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“I never thought anything would beat that feeling,” Clarke explained. “And then I came here.”
“But this place… it can’t… it can’t sustain this. The animals…”
“It’s not as perfect as they make it seem,” she agreed. “We had a bacterial outbreak that killed off a few dozen, and the raptors are showing signs of–”
“Raptors?”
That had been missing from the tour. Clarke gulped when she realized the words that came out of her mouth. Frantically, she searched her brain for a way to back track it, though none presented itself rightly.
“Um.”
“You’ve bred predators?!” Lexa yelled.
Clarke didn’t like that very much. She did, actually. She liked how angry she looked because her jaw was tight and her eyes were fire. But she hated it.
“I didn’t do anything. I just help try to keep them all alive.”
“There’s no way this place is safe.”
“We have high walls, lined with electric charges, and the predators are kept separate.”
“I can’t believe this,” Lexa stood and grabbed her bag, ready to march out.
Quickly, Clarke grabbed her arm and tugged her back.
“Where are you going?”
“To shut this down.”
“Believe me, it’s too late for that.”
The storm roared outside, and Clarke stood there, holding Lexa’s arm until she yanked it away. Slightly wounded, she just waited for the inevitable lashing that she was almost growing to expect from the professor.
Instead, she was met with quiet.
“You can’t be okay with it,” Lexa shook her head.
“I’m not, but I was too far in before I found out. Now I have all of those animals, like you met today, and I can’t just trust anyone else–”
“No, I get it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What are you apologizing for?” Lexa asked, cocking her head slightly. Once more, in that place, in this room, around that girl, she felt overwhelmed.
“I don’t know. It just felt right.”
Once more, she shook her head and was met with a kind of grin that made her forget about giant carnivores who could eat her in one bite. Until she remembered.
“I should, um,” Lexa pulled away slightly, unsure how she got to be standing so close to an animal handler in the middle of an island in a jungle inhabited by extinct creatures. “I should go to bed.”
“Yeah, um, me too,” Clarke agreed, clearing her throat. “Tomorrow? See you early for the trip out to the river?”
“Yeah.”
With coy eyes, Lexa darted away as fast as her feet could take her without looking like she was running. Clarke stood on the porch and scratched her neck as she watched her look back and hurriedly look away.
And she hated Raven once again.