Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Of all the things they were expecting to find it wasn’t Brooklynn, it wasn’t Brooklynn or her missing arm, or the stack of cash and a new haircut, or that obsessiveness that led her to the same random cabin in the middle of nowhere island after they had to escape. It was all just surreal.

But it was a welcomed surprise. Their missing piece of the camp fam wasn’t dead and gone, she wasn’t stuck on some other life while they were stuck in this one. No, Brooklynn was alive, banged up and broken, but they’ve all had that issue before and they’d help her get to where she needs to be.

But that is for the future camp fam, and this one in the now is hurting at not knowing Brooklynn lived. At not being involved till they were forced to run for their lives torn from their homes and lives just like all those years ago.

The hurt and relief swirl like the lake behind the abandoned building. It left them exhausted and quite frankly for all they knew it could be a hallucination, though they disproved that with the hugs. Well all of them did but one.

Brooklynn smiles at Sammy, arms open for the Texas size hug the woman always gives. “Oh, it’s so good to see you—!”

There’s a loud crack and her world goes black for a second. One minute Brooklynn is looking at glassy eyes, the next she’s looking at the celling.

She grunts out in pain, tongue feeling around for any missing or lose teeth.

“Sammy!” Their friends cry out.

Brooklynn can’t help but laugh with a moan intertwined with her mirth. There’s blood dripping, no flowing, down her nose.

“Good to see you too, Sammy”

Ben and Darius grab at Sammy but even with Ben pulling by her jacket and Darius trying to contain her arms it does nothing to deter the woman.

The smile on Brooklynn’s face falls when she sees the tears dropping from her friend’s face.

“Hey—” Brooklynn says, reaching out but the hand that slipped through Darius’s grasp pulls Brooklynn up by the collar of the shirt till she’s dangling off the ground.

And they say Ben was the one who’s grown.

Brooklynn scrambles at the arm holding her, her feet kicking air. She’s counting her blessings that Sammy didn’t grab her by her throat or else Brooklynn was sure she’d pass out by now.

“You!” The Texan snarls, the other fist free and cocking back again. Kenji tries to put himself between them but it’s as useful as stopping a stampede of scared dinos.

“What was the one rule” Sammy says lowly, her voice cold. There was a tone to it that none of them have heard before.

Brooklynn bites her lips, she didn’t think it would hurt her friends this badly, but she was so close. To catching the broker, to finding out just who wants to kill them. Surely, they’d understand. Sammy should have understood, she knew that if something happened to her then—Brooklynn breaks off her thoughts as shame starts filling her stomach like lead.

“Always have a backup” she grits out just as Sammy raises her higher.

The woman glares at her, the fist at her side clenches so hard that Sammy’s knuckles turn white. Brooklyn braces, her mind falling back to all the sparing the two of them had done. She’s expecting a hit only instead she finds herself tossed onto the floor.

“You never made contact…Ronnie didn’t—why? What was the point if you were just going to leave me out. You pulled me half way in Brooklynn and then ghosted, quite literally”

For an awful moment it was silent.

It was the kind of silence you’d hear before a dino bursts from the bushes and tries to take your head off, it’s the silence of the evening sky as everything gets quieter and darker and you don’t know if you’ll wake in the morning.

“Why didn’t you get back in contact” Brooklynn hears again.

“To dangerous” Brooklyn got out between her aching gums, she wonders if it’s from the first hit or if she just got to jostled when tossed like a sack of potatoes. She jerks up hearing a low dark chuckle come from Sammy, their brightest and such soft-hearted companion. “Dinosaurs are on the mainland, Bumpy killed my cousin and nearly killed me too when she first arrived—”

There was a gasp but neither she nor Sammy knew who it came from, but that didn’t stop, just like the tears down her friend’s cheek or the hatred in her eyes.

Sammy glared at her and Brooklynn know that no dinosaur could scare her the way the other woman was looking at her.

“My parents and the rest of my family abandoned me on the farm because I kept her, Carl isn’t the only neighbor who’s wanted to kill me or Bumpy. There are still Manticore agents about trying to put one in my head…so yeah, you dumbass piece of shit I think it’s already dangerous enough that it wouldn’t have made one God damn difference if you came to me like all those months ago…”

Sammy shakes her head, clears her throat. Repeatedly. Her mouth opens only to close again, Sammy, the chatty hyperactive woman who could hold a conversation for five people all at once was at a loss for words.

Brooklynn waits, so does the rest of the team but their big-hearted Texan is done it seems.

Sammy turns and walks.

“Wait” Brooklynn says as she sees her friend go. Sammy doesn’t stop, not when the boys move to stop her and not when they cry out as they’re also thrown to the floor.

She doesn’t even stop for Yas.

“Sammy” Yasmina whispers, hand reaching out but Sammy flinches away, nostrils flaring. There’s an almost wild look in her eye that reminds her of the bull Sammy and her family had to rehome when they were younger.

“I don’t want to be touched right now” Sammy whispers out tensely.

And that’s the biggest nail on the head. Brooklynn knows how much Sammy loves through touches and now she won’t let Yas of all people do it.

She fucked up, she fucked up bad and yet…she can’t help wondering how things would have gone had she gotten the rest involved earlier.

Chapter Text

Noone has come to the cabin, apparently it was abandoned for more stable and defendable positions in the northern portion of the island. Which was good and bad for them, but mostly good. It meant that they didn’t have to worry about the Broker’s people sniffing around, but it also meant that there was no danger to keep them from bothering each other.

Well, it was mostly Brooklynn bothering her but hey, who’s counting to ten in their head. It’s not Sammy, nope, not at all.

Still, they’ve been vigilant, the old habits dying hard as they take turns on watch duty, mostly for the stray dinos that have escaped but It didn’t matter much besides adding to the peace of their mind.

A particularly small compy hops around her feet. It trills as Sammy drops a few berries that the little dino couldn’t reach and eats them with a gusto that reminded her of her chickens.

She’s been collecting berries for the better part of an hour, eating a few as she goes along. It’s already been a week since the fight between her and Brooklynn, well if you could call it that. It was pretty one sided on Sammy’s part and even though a part of her felt bad for how she acted…well it was a small part. A very small part that she wasn’t paying that much attention to right now.

She tosses another berry to the compy and watches it scurry after the rolling fruit.

Sammy sighs, she just wasn’t expecting this much anger to still be broiling under her skin. She can’t even stay in the same room for two minutes before she wants to punch Brooklynn again, it doesn’t even matter if neither of them are talking to each other in the moment.

It also doesn’t help that the blonde’s not helping herself when she keeps trying to force talking, or worse acting like nothing bad happened because they had to do some recon together and that made them buddy buddy again bonding over almost getting eaten by the one large carnivore that escaped, like when they were children.

Sammy growls under her breath, feels her pulse uptick from the anger and exhaustion weighing her down, she feels the shrub brush against her head as she leans forward; why couldn’t things just be easy for once…the compy cries next to her hunched form, it’s demand for food loud and clear.

If it wasn’t one thing it was always another.

There’s muffled shouting behind her, Sammy turns and looks over her shoulder.

At least she wasn’t the only one feeling just how tense things are, Sammy wasn’t the only one to blow a gasket, but at least hers wasn’t the most awkward one. As if on que, the door slams open, the once muffled voices now open and roaring in the wind.  Brooklynn’s raging face stops on her for a second before she shakes her head and stomps off somewhere just like Sammy did on the first night here. The high pitch angry garble like nails on chalkboard could be heard even as the investigative journalist goes out of eyesight.

Welp, at least now she can take a shower without being cornered.

A throat cleared itself startling her, on reflex Sammy thrust her hands on the ground counteracting her movement of mass and kicked out and up, catching Kenji in the stomach. Her friend gasps out a breath and falls to his knees next to her.

For a minute they just stay there, Sammy continuing to collect the berries for everyone and Kenji crumpled over trying to catch his breath.

When he’s caught most of his breath back, she reaches down and grabs him by the scruff of his jacket and puts him in a sitting position next to her squatted form.

“Hey!” he yelps, his palms up in the air, “we really need to get a different greeting between us”

She fights the grin. “I don’t think so Kenji”

She stops when she hears a heavy sigh and looks at him, then at the direction of the blonde’s last known location. For a second her traitorous heart is concerned for the woman’s safety, but then the care sours at all that has transpired.

Well, and what also didn’t transpire between them, what was the point of it all, why did Ronnie not make contact with her again? Why didn’t Brooklynn? If things were so bad wouldn’t multiple people need to know? If something did happen again to Brooklynn or the allosaurus killed her the first time around then it would have just been Ronnie and her, or just Ronnie if she froze her out then too.

What if something happened to Ronnie and Brooklynn leaving her alone to deal with the rest even when she didn’t know what else they were planning, she was always on the outskirts, it’s not like Ronnie told her anything but forget what they started and to grieve for the loss of a friend once Brooklynn ‘died’.

“Sammy?” Kenji asked ripping her from her thoughts.

“Can I help you with something?” She asks, not unkindly. Kenji follows her line of sight, his face growing darker and closed off.

“I don’t know”

She hums and goes back to foraging the berry bush, it’s one that she knows was grown here intentionally, hell all the bushing ‘round here were in all nice little rows and columns. She still just can’t figure out why this place isn’t being used anymore.

Sure, it’s harder to defend and spacious and there’s dinos, but they’re everywhere now, and frankly in her book the sea is just as dangerous if not more so than that of a barrier like the mountains. She’s pretty sure the mosasaurus would happily agree with her.

“Sammy?” Kenji asks again.

“Hmm?”

Kenji moved to a cross-legged position next to her and picked berries alongside her, placing the fruit carefully in his shirt that he pulled forward in a makeshift basket.

“How did you and Yas fix your issues”

Sammy snorted, nearly choking on the berry she popped into her mouth, “Things ain’t fixed yet, Kenji. Just a little less…stuck between a rock and hard place than we were before”

The compy from before wiggles between them, trying to snap berries out of Kenji’s jacket. Sammy grabs a few in the little box she’s placed her berries in and tossed them under a nearby bush.

They watch as the little dinosaur squeaks after them.

“Never thought I’d find those things cute...” He nods absentmindedly after the little critter before shaking his head, “how did you get to that point then”

Sammy popped another berry into her mouth and tossed one at Kenji who easily caught it between his teeth. The two settled into the soft dirt looking at the clouds and enjoying the small amount of peace and quiet they’ve been rewarded. After a moment she shrugged, “there was some raised voices, some fighting, a dinosaur attack—” she shrugged.

“Ah” the young man said, tossing his own handful of berries to the micro compy, who now sported some new friends. “so, same old same old then, and everything will work out. I just need a dino to try and kill me and Brooklynn so we can have an honest talk…great”

She patted his stomach in sympathy, it did little to help her pouting friend.

“We talked” Sammy offered, bumping his shoulder with her own, “lots of talking, and even more to come at a later date once all of this” she gestured vaguely around her. “Is over”

“I mean better than no talking and faking your death” Kenji huffed out a breath, “funny, you and I have lied and betrayed the group before but I don’t think it ever felt like this”

Yeah, but that was so long ago. Before the dinosaurs hit the mainland, before their world was flipped upside down again, this time permanently. The only saving grace was that they weren’t alone this time, they had their family, they had each other, they had the strangers they’ve met along the way who still remembered the time before the once long dead became the newly living.

She’s met people who have never known what not having living dinosaurs were like. Those who did had an innocents to them that was stolen from the Nublar Six.

Sammy looks at the berry in her hand and squishes it, the juices stain her palms and liquid red splatters around the crevasse of her palm. You could easily mistake it for blood.

She thinks of that first day, and the subsequent ones after that, she thinks of Mitch & Tiff, of all the agro dinosours. She remembers the destruction in the wake of the living just trying to survive.

“There’s a difference between burning a field and salting one” she says, she chuckles at the look he gives her.

“I don’t know what that means if I’m being honest, even I’ll admit I’m too city to understand it”

She snorts, at least some things don’t change.

“We were kids when we fucked up Kenji—”

It’s small but Kenji smiles, his shoulders relaxing just that much more, “Still don’t think I’m going to get used to hearing you swear”

She gives him a look and he raises a hand in deference while shoving a handful of berries into his mouth.

“Sorry, continue” he gets out around the fruit.

“Well,” she continues, “for one while we knew what we wanted, we didn’t exactly know or think about what we were doing. Besides, we earned our way back, Brooklynn will have to do the same”

“So, you’re open for forgiving her then?”

“Maybe if she doesn’t piss me off again, I could go for a spar right about now…” The branch in her hand she didn’t know she picked up snapped. “Maybe if I got a few more hits in I’ll be settled…but”

Sammy threw the broken sticks over her shoulder, its silhouette outlined in the darkening sky.

“We all had reasons for doing what we did, that doesn’t change with Brooklynn. It’s just up to us to determine if how she went about it would be a boundary we choose not to accept to cross”

Kenji’s quiet, Sammy doesn’t bother him. What ever he processes is quick, or satiated for today.

“While I don’t agree with it, I can admit you know how to throw a good punch…which is why I’m volunteering Darius to be the sparring partner you’re talking about” His hand comes out to pat her shoulder.

It’s a blatant segway, she glares at him.

He’s almost completed the action before he looks at her, for a second, they’re dead locked but Sammy doesn’t bat him away and he slowly puts his hand down to pat her shoulder. Each tap firmer than the last.

“Thanks again” This time it’s a gentile squeeze.

Sammy grunts and the two stay out a little longer before bring in a decent haul in for dinner, they look up when their half way there to the door opening. Darius steps out, they watch as he gives an awkward wave.

Kenji sighs heavily again, “any last words of advice?”

“Don’t get in the way of my fist. Ever again” Sammy jokes. Well, mostly.

“I should put that on a sticker” her friend grins at her.