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Kelly sets off at dawn, which, at this time of year, is around 9AM. There has to be some kind of advantage to living above the 60th parallel, she tells herself, blearily.
The sky is heavy with clouds, and the wind is already picking up. She doesn't think she can avoid the coming snow, but the sled is lighter now, most of the stuff having been unloaded in Puvirnituq a week ago, and not many people are sending stuff further up North. Just a few small presents and tokens. Mostly cards. Nothing she can't carry herself if the sled gets problematic.
She's not staying put another day. Not when they are so close to home, now.
She pulls on Marie's bridle, gives a small squeeze around her wooly sides, and they start down the road.
They take a left past the last house in the village and head into the snow-filled valley, sled bobbing along behind them.
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The Countdown to Doomsday had started right on the heels of InGen's last clusterfuck.
The headlines had gone from BRONTOSAURUS IN CENTRAL PARK to KILLER ROCKS IN EARTH'S HEADLIGHTS in the space of an afternoon, which was probably why it had taken everyone a while to start panicking. But when NASA had soberly confirmed that even the judicious application of Bruce Willis wasn't going to solve the problem, things had degenerated pretty quickly.
The most common opinion among fundamentalist christians and irony-loving hipsters was that whoever had gotten rid of the dinosaurs four thousand 65 million years ago apparently really wanted them to stay dead.
Kelly privately found it a bit arrogant to think that between 7 billion 'sinful' humans and one island full of dinos, a pissed off demiurge would have more beef with the latter, but she conceded there was a nice, poetic symmetry to the whole thing.
The world hadn't waited for the rocks to drop to explode into war, as every country apparently tried to get one last feud/takeover/genocide in before deadline. A year out from D-Day, it looked like the asteroids wouldn't have much left to crush once they got to destination.
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"Oh no. No no no no," Kelly says over the wind, when Marie stops, hesitant, for the third time in half an hour. "You’re supposed to know where you're going, Your Majesty, because I sure as hell don't, right now."
She can't see five meters in front of her. Not that seeing more bleak snowy wasteland would actually help.
Marie's retracing her steps now, rumbling low in her chest, apparently as frustrated as Kelly is.
This is not happening. Goddammit. Getting the tent up is a bitch in this weather, and who knows when the wind will die down--
Kelly kicks Marie's flanks impatiently, and Marie snaps at her leg, hissing.
She pets her neck, hurriedly. God, she needs to focus. But she's been on this run for a month and a half, with a hyper-intelligent but still pre-speech fluffy raptor for only company, and she hasn't seen her girlfriend in just as long, and it won't stop fucking snowing so she feels justified in loosing her cool, a little.
"Shit, shit, shittery fuck." And yes, Kelly knows that if Marie ever starts parroting stuff back (as Lex thinks she will), she going to have filthiest mouth you've ever seen on a dinosaur.
Marie's head suddenly snaps up, her nostrils working the frozen air, focussed. She lets out a high-pitched cry, triumphant, and sets forward into the storm at a dead speed.
Kelly lets go of the reigns and holds on to Marie's hide instead. "This better be your bird brain flocking north," she grinds between her teeth, face against the soft fur of her neck, "and not your freaky mutant stomach tracking dinner, Your Highness."
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Marie-Antoinette is a ridiculous name for a dinosaur. It was also a ridiculous name for the royal poodle Kelly's old boss used to drag around the office, that summer Kelly thought being an corporate drone would be so cool and exotic, after years of being dragged around on safaris or spelunking expeditions or wherever, when her dad delegated his fatherly duties to Sarah.
Marie-Antoinette was a pretty ridiculous name for a person, really, never mind a French Royal, but Lex gave Kelly a pretty ridiculous raptor, so it fits.
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They cross fresh caribou tracks an hour later, but before Kelly can work herself up to a good if pointless rant at Marie, she sees a dark shape up ahead that slowly resolves into a half buried building.
"God save the Queen," Kelly sighs, petting Marie's neck gratefully.
When they reach the outpost, Kelly jumps down from Marie's back and frees her from the sled's harness as fast as her numb fingers can. Marie is making those hungry purr-hisses she does when she wants to hunt. Intellectually, Kelly knows she's not prey, this time, but there are things you don't forget and that night on Isla Sorna is one of them.
Marie bolts into the blizzard the moment she's loose, and Kelly makes her way to the building's door.
The place has been visited, since she'd last passed here, six weeks ago. The packages she'd left for Ivujivik on her way down is gone, and there's a fresh one in its place, only a small one. The bunker is the last stop, after this one. Home.
Kelly takes five minutes to warm up her frozen hands, before going back to the sled to unload the last parcels.
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Before Countdown, Kelly had been a bike messenger in New York. (The office slave thing hadn't lasted, to no one's surprise.) Fixed gear, no breaks, she'd been the bane of drivers everywhere.
Kelly loved it. Her dad dealt with it by repeatedly telling her she wasn't allowed to do it and purposefully deluding himself into thinking she was his other, more obedient daughter. Sarah thought it was awesome. Kelly didn't tell her mom.
The gymnastics training had been surprisingly useful to deal with the city traffic. It had been especially handy when trying to avoid running over people who didn't stop at intersections because modern science had to be rewritten right now, from this very smartphone, what do you mean, the light is red, can't you see I'm very busy?
Kelly is very glad she didn't run over Lex Murphy that day. It would have been a shame for her sex life, for one thing.
First, they'd bonded over their respective experience being chased by bloodthirsty creatures, then they'd bonded over beers, then long walks in the park and late nights in the lab and five AM quickies behind the Purolator drop counter.
How she went from doing slalom around New York taxis to running the one and currently only long-distance courier line from Salluit to Kuujjuarapik on what is, essentially, a carnivorous Tauntaun, she's still a little bit hazy on, however.
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The outpost isn't very far from Ivujivik proper, and it has a landline.
"Echo Three to Echo Seven," Kelly says into the phone, "Do you read me? And also, why do you get to be Han Solo, again?"
"I'm taller," comes Lex's voice, tiny over the tenuous connection, but Kelly can hear the smugness anyway. It's a goddamn injustice, really, what with her ten feet tall dad.
"Whatever, I have the coolest ride," Kelly answers, looking outside the window to see Marie coming back, clearly finished with dinner. She drops down in the snow, rolling around to wash the blood out of her fur, tiny front claws flailing about. Very dignified.
"How far out are you?" Lex asks, and Kelly can hear badly repressed hope in her voice.
"Two days" Kelly says, without thinking, "three at the most." She's not. She's three hours away, top. She can make the last leg before sundown. She doesn't really know why she's doing this. "I'm sorry, babe. You know how the tracks are right now."
"Dammit, Kel, you said that three days-" Lex starts.
"I'll be there soon, promise," Kelly says, hurriedly. She needs to get off the phone and back in the saddle before Lex's disappointed sigh guilts her into confessing.
"Yeah, sure. Okay," Lex says, resigned. "Love you. Don't let Marie eat you."
Kelly snorts. "Judging by the state of her, she just swallowed an entire caribou, possibly antlers included. I think I'm safe for a little while still."
"Gross!" Lex exclaims, predictably, before the line goes dead.
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It wasn't her fault she fell in love with a mad scientist. A mad scientist whose solution to Armageddon was to fuck off to Nunavik to build a Batcave bunker where she could avoid most of the predicted impact zones and keep up the family tradition of reverse-engineering Ice-Age monsters to while away the long, lighltess winter months.
"Mammoths will be perfect, climate-appropriate beasts of burden!" she'd said, showing Kelly the blueprints, pointing at the large holding area between the generator and the water treatment tanks.
Kelly thought it was cute how, childhood trauma notwithstanding, Lex had kept a fond weakness for oversized herbivores.
Kelly didn't know what's her own excuse was, for having kept a small weakness for bloodthirsty predators. She guessed you saw them in different light, once you'd kicked one in the head.
It wasn't just a whim. They weren't alone up here, Kelly reminded Lex, one month into their exile, and the cargo planes connecting the Northern Villages were getting fewer and father between as things in the South got worse. It wasn't like they would get better after impact. A lightweight, 'climate-appropriate' mount to go say Hi to the neighbors and open inland trade routes was only logical.
Also, Kelly was going to go crazy if she didn't move.
Lex had had to make do with the local wildlife and a few scraps from Dr. Wu's old experiments, but three months later, Kelly had a map, a sled, and Marie.
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Kelly finds Lex in the greenhouse. She's picking tomatoes, eyeing each one critically before setting them down in a bowl.
"Hey, babe," Kelly says, standing on her toes to bump her chin against Lex's shoulder, then press her nose to the back of her neck.
"Ngyaaark!" Lex yells, tomato bowl tipping dangerously as she tries simultaneously to turn and get away from Kelly's icicle face, "cold, cold, cold, cold!!"
Kelly can't help grinning at Lex's murderous face. She bets Tim saw a lot of that face. She doesn't think he appreciated it quite as much as Kelly does now.
Lex recovers quickly, however, and switches to her "you think you're so clever" look. "You're just in time for dinner," she says, dropping the bowl into Kelly's hands. "I've got you tomatoes and bell peppers and basil leaves. You can make the sauce, I'll boil the pastas."
Kelly wants to protest this outrageous division of labour, when the words register. "Wait. How-" she starts, frowning.
"You can't outsmart a hacker. We know all, see all, especially lying globetrotting girlfriends who lie," she says, smugly.
"So, what?" Kelly asks, absolutely not pouting. "You wormed your way into the Canadian Secret Services mainframe and inverted the polarity on their secret spy satellite until it gave you one of those cool heat radiation photos where the only thing not deep blue and freezing was a single raptor courier hidden in a shed?"
"Why would I do that, when I have caller ID and Paulusie Iqiquq's outpost is on Google Maps?" Lex asks, grinning.
"How is it the world is ending and the internet is still around?" Kelly wants to grumble, but Lex is coming closer, hands worming their way between the layers of parka, sweater, thermal underwear, until she can trace the bare top of Kelly's hips with warm fingers, and Kelly lets out a small groan instead.
She knows not to reciprocate until her own hands reach room temperature, so she settles for putting the bowl down among the tomato plants and crossing her arms at the small of Lex's back, pressing her tight against her.
"You smell like the mammoth pen," she mumbles into Lex's shirt. It's heavenly.
"Yeah. I won't tell you what you smell like, then," Lex snorts.
Kelly leans down a little and nips at Lex's chest through the shirt, right at the top of her left breast. Lex's laughter vibrates against her chin. Her fingers move up to draw little circles across Kelly's back.
Goddammit, she missed her. If Lex wants her to take a shower, she's going to have to come with.
"I have that console you wanted," she says, distracted, bringing a hand around to slide up Lex's waist, palm the underside of a breast, "the one that was in storage in Inukjuaq."
"You're home," Lex says, not listening, nosing at Kelly's temple, hands tugging at her coat zipper.
"And I think the package from Qumaluk is the seeds he said he'd get from his friend in Greenland," Kelly continues, mostly because if she stops speaking, she's going to have to kiss Lex, and if she kisses Lex, she won't be able to stop.
"You're home," Lex says again, smiling at Kelly like she's a hard drive and barley seeds and the answer to the perpetual energy generator and dinosaur blood in amber all rolled into one.
Fuck it, Kelly thinks against Lex's lips. It's winter in the arctic. Homicidal space rocks are coming to smite everyone, if humanity doesn't get there first. They have a Batcave and Tauntauns and mammoths and tomatoes. They're not going anywhere, and Kelly has never been so ridiculously happy to stand still.
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