a bit of sunshine - DUG

[kevin]

"Oi! Knock it off and hold still!"

Winston blantently ignored her entire request, bounding away from Kevin all sudsy and wet. He pranced around the three baby snipes that were running around her front yard, slinging water onto them and causing them to hoot and ruffle their feathers in protest. Dropping the hose, Kevin darted after the golden retriever with a huff, soaking wet herself.

"Get back here!"

Her hands seized around his collar and she tugged him back toward the hose, managing to grab it with her free hand and running it over his soapy fur. He snapped at the bubbles that rose and the water that deflected, until Kevin let him go, satisfied he had been washed well enough. Golden fur shining in the rare bit of warm sunlight for the day, he ran away across the yard again, shaking off as he did.

"Don't worry. I'll spare you three the bath with the hose. You can hang out in the bathtub tonight." She said to the birds as if they could understand - she was quite certain that sometimes they could - and moved to cut off the hose. She had taken advantage of the bit of sunlight to wash Winston and get a bit of fresh air for herself and her three newest charges, and maybe even a tan - although, spending those few weeks in South America had given her more than a farmers tan and plenty more freckles across her face.

Wringing her shirt out, she stretched out along the blanket she had laid out earlier and pulled her sketchbook back toward her to continue the drawing she had been working on before of the little Snipes at play. Laying on her stomach with her feet in the air, she began her sketching anew, smiling fondly at her four favorite animals as they ran around the yard.

[dug]

Dug walked along the side of the road that led to the residences in Trenale, hands in his pockets. From a distance, it probably looked like he was on some sort of comfortable leisurely stroll, but Dug had a purpose on this little venture away from campus. He was going to see Kevin for the first time in months, and it was making him feel unreasonably nervous. There had been a long gap between letters she'd sent him (the most recent one being a short message saying she was back and was in one of the houses in the resident area), and he still didn't know what had happened to Preston the Snipe after she'd taken him back to South America.

It really worried Dug that she hadn't updated him about the Snipe he had named. Was there something she didn't want to tell him, or had she just been really busy? Being really busy hadn't kept her from talking to him about things before, though, so Dug didn't think that would be it. One possibility that really made him nervous was that she figured out that he liked her and had wanted to keep her distance. Oh how Dug hoped that wasn't the case; he would rather stay silent forever than ruin the friendship they had.

Still walking, he rounded a bend in the road, and suddenly there she was, chasing Winston around the yard of a yellow house. Dug was still a good distance away, but he could tell it was her, and the small colorful birds running around the yard confirmed it. He grinned as he watched, but then frowned slightly; there was no grown Snipe in the yard, and that increased his worry for Preston.

Well there was only one way to find out the truth. Dug quickened his pace and soon reached the end of the driveway, where he stopped and waited for her to (hopefully) notice him, not wanting to startle her or the animals. Well, that and he was still nervous about seeing her again.

[kevin]

Kevin quickly sketched out her three Snipes and Winston, flipping to another page, already finding it occupied. Frowning slightly, she remembered this was the sketchbook she had started before leaving South America. The sketches on the following pages were familiar - of Preston, of Ellie, Dug, places around the campground they had spent the summer at, and even some of the velociraptors that had so kindly nearly ripped her leg off her body. She still had the scars from that, unfortunately.

Smiling as she flipped through the pages, she sighed and shut the book as her birds let out noises she had come to learn mean they were either excited or freaked out. Winston was barking too, and running in the direction of her driveway. Panicked he would get himself hit by a car, she scrambled to her feet and darted after him, only to come to a halt a few moments later when she recognized there was a figure standing at the end of her driveway - her face broke into a wide grin when she realized who it was.

Without proper coherent thought, she beat Winston to Dug and flung her arms around him in a tight hug, nearly sending both of them to the ground. She was laughing, clinging to him so tightly, afraid if she let go she herself would have to be whisked away on some other important mission. However, the noises of her birds brought her back to reality a moment later with the startling news that Dug did not know about Preston. Composing herself, she stepped back and gave him an easy smile.

"Hey there, stranger."

[dug]

Dug smiled as he watched her start drawing in her sketchbook, wishing he could look over her shoulder and see the sketches. Of course it was probably of the animals in the yard, but it had been a while since he'd seen any of her drawings. She'd always been carting some sort of notebook around over the summer, and he wondered if she still had the drawings of all the stuff at the camp. He'd have to ask her.

Winston and the birds spotted him and started making some sort of commotion. Were those baby Snipes? They were so colorful, they had to be, but Dug couldn't remember ever actually seeing a baby Snipe before. Well, Kevin would just have to introduce him to them. The fact that they were here probably meant that their mother was dead, though, and the thought saddened Dug.

Winston was probably about to run over him, though, so it would probably be better to pay attention to what was going on now, not stuff he couldn't have prevented. It would seem that Kevin was going to get to him first, not Winston. Aaaand she wasn't slowing down; Dug braced himself for a tackle. Laughing, he hugged her back, lifting her off the ground and spinning her in a circle, partially just to take away some of the momentum, but mostly just because he wanted to and it seemed natural.

"Hi," he said, grinning happily and not knowing what else to say.

[kevin]

For a fleeting moment, Kevin wanted to freeze the moment. With her dog, birds, and now Dug, her life would seem rather complete. It seemed rather perfect, too, and she had missed these moments dearly. Eventually, she'd come up with a way to preserve moments like this. If not, well, she'd store them away in her memory forever.

"I missed you. I'm sorry I've been gone. Emergency." She said, smile wavering slightly. How to approach this gently? It wasn't easy, either . . . . Sighing, Kevin figured it would be best to tell him up front. "I would have returned home sooner, but - Preston's dead, Dug. Died not long after we returned to Paradise Falls." She knew animals died, but the reasons behind the death were ones that didn't make her happy. He'd died because he'd been held in captivity far too long.

The birds nipping at her ankles brought her attention back elsewhere, though. "But, as it turned out, Preston wasn't exactly a he. She was a she, and before she died, I found these three little ones." Kevin knelt and ran her fingers along their unnaturally soft feathers. She looked up at Dug with a sad smile. "Good things come from the bad, I suppose. I brought this lot back with me. They're safer here than in the jungle with hunters." Her tone turned slightly bitter at the thought of hunters - on in particular, Charles Muntz. While she held nothing against Dug because of his father, Kevin hated the man with deep passion.

"This is Imzadi, Rabeem, and Fana." She introduced the little birds to Dug as they chattered about his feet. "I've told them stories about you. Seems they were listening and understood more than I thought if they recognize you like this. Most people they shy away from."