The lab always smelled faintly of ozone and metal fatigue, the way things do when they’ve been shocked back into life after decades asleep. Power buzzed uncertainly through cables older than either of you, casting the equipment in flickering amber light. Outside, the jungle was thunderous with nocturnal life—chirrs and low groans, something huge shifting in the dark like the planet itself turning in its sleep.

You sat on opposite ends of a forgotten workbench. Dust curled along the edges of the table like ash on old paper. Henry cradled a tin mug of lukewarm coffee, his sleeves rolled to the elbows, the edges of his collar damp with sweat. His hair was a little longer than it used to be—shaggy at the temples, falling across his brow in a way that annoyed him and quietly delighted you.

He hadn’t spoken in a while, just typed—mechanical, focused—but you could feel the weight of his glances every time you moved. A reach for the flask. A shift in your seat. That silent scrutiny you remembered too well.

“Do you ever wonder if we made a mistake?” he asked suddenly.

Your eyes flicked up. A pale moth batted against the light over his shoulder, wings frantic, catching shadow. “In coming here, or getting divorced?”

He smiled, but it was thin, a tired bend of the mouth that didn’t touch his eyes. “Either. Both.”

You stared at him, really stared—for the first time since you’d joined the expedition. He looked older now, but not in a way that made you feel victorious or vindicated. Just real. More human. Creases at the corners of his eyes, a touch of grey in the beard he used to shave every morning like clockwork when you were still married.

“I think we were good at being in love,” you said, slowly. “We just weren’t good at staying in the same room.”

His knuckles went white around the mug. “Yeah. That sounds about right.”

You both knew the truth. The divorce had been quieter than the marriage. No betrayals, no great blowout. Just exhaustion. A slow retreat from one another’s orbit. Long silences. Two bodies brushing past each other in hallways, the bed cold in the middle. He'd buried himself in papers; you buried yourself in silence.

And now here you were. Two ghosts of your former selves, chasing dinosaur genomes in a facility held together by rust and hope.

“I read your recent paper,” he said after a beat, eyes still lowered. “The one on retroviral DNA recombination. Brilliant. Really elegant.” There was a warmth in his voice, tentative but real.

You blinked. “You still read my work?”

“Always,” he said. “Even when I was pretending I didn’t care.”

The silence after that was soft, not tense. Like something you could lean into.

“I thought you hated me,” you whispered, not sure where the words came from.

His eyes met yours then—clear, earnest, tired of pretending. “I never hated you. I hated myself for not knowing how to love you better.”

Your heart stuttered. Not in that young, frantic way—but with the painful recognition of someone who once held all your softest parts.

The generator hiccuped. The lights flickered again. In the half-dark, his silhouette was golden and blurred, like memory. He set the mug down. Slowly, deliberately.

“I know we’re not who we were,” he said, voice hushed. “But I still remember how you take your coffee. And the way you hum when you’re working. And how you used to talk to your microscope like it was a pet.” A breath. “And I still love the way your mind works. It’s ridiculous, and brilliant, and always four steps ahead of mine. You made me want to be better.”

You looked at him, and for a moment it wasn’t Isla Sorna, and it wasn’t 2:47 AM, and there wasn’t a storm of monsters waiting in the underbrush. It was just two people sitting at a table full of ghosts and unsaid things.