New World

Tucking her hair behind her ear, Darcy brought her plate to Harry’s kitchen table, where he already sat with his plate full of food. It was part of their nightly routine to eat dinner together, with Darcy usually heading back to her small home just before the sun fell from the sky.

All of the paleontologists had once eaten together, but as they spent more time in Atello, the group realized that their nightly dinners weren’t necessary, but Harry and Darcy, being the youngest and the ones with no families, still had their dinners together. At first, they did it just so they didn’t have to be alone, but now they did it because they couldn’t imagine eating dinner apart. It just didn’t seem right.

“Can you believe that girl honestly thought than a raptor was a herbivore? I thought people got taught that sort of kindergarten.”

Darcy chuckled, as she took her seat across from Harry, smiling at the curly haired boy in front of her. “Well, maybe she had chicken pox that day.”

“And every day after that. And during every one of Colonel Morris’s speeches. And –”

“I get it, Harry,” Darcy interrupted, holding up her hand. “She’s really, really, sick.”

“That’s right,” Harry said firmly, as he shoved a bite of spaghetti in his mouth. With his face still full of food, he continued. “She probably needs to go see the doctor.”

“She needs to live at the doctor’s,” Darcy joked back, as the two of them quickly fell into their nightly routine.

After the first words that were spoken from either of their mouths, everything just flowed so easily between the two of them. Anyone who saw them together couldn’t deny that they were best friends, and of all the wonderful things that came out of going to Atello, Darcy thought Harry was on the top of that list. Not only had she gotten the career opportunity of a lifetime, she had made a best friend, whom she got along with better than anyone she knew before their time switch.

To Darcy, it seemed like dinner was finished far too quickly, and she reluctantly took her plates to Harry’s sink, rinsing them underneath the running water.

“I can get that,” Harry said, standing quickly from his place to take the plates from Darcy’s hands. He pulled them from her, as she ran them through the water, and caused a few of the drops to splash against her shirt.

“Oh, god,” Harry said, wiping a towel against her stained stomach. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s alright, Haz. It’s just water.”

His eyes were wide as he brushed over the spot again and again, and Darcy thought she’d never seen him so upset over one spill. Bring her hand to his, she stopped the rubbing motion he refused to stop.

“It’s okay, Harry, really. I’ll be home in just a few moments to change.”

Harry nodded, sighing as he took a step back from her. He shook his head quickly, his cheeks redder than she’d ever seen. “I’m sorry. I was trying to help and I just screwed up.”

“Harry, it was one spill. It’s really not a big deal.”

Darcy couldn’t help but chuckle as she watched him ruffle his hair. He only did that under the best of circumstances, the worst of circumstances, or when he was extremely nervous, and Darcy couldn’t even imagine which of the three was happening in his mind at that moment.

“You can borrow one of my shirts if you’d like," he said, looking at her as he ran his fingers through his hair once more. “That way you don’t have to go home so soon.”

On most occasions, Darcy would go home fairly soon after their dinner, as both of them usually headed to bed early on weeknights so they could be well rested for work the next day, so she wasn’t sure why he was suddenly so keen on her staying longer.

“You’re not trying to sabotage me, are you?” she joked, as she stared at him with her hands on her hips. “Trying to keep me out all night so I won’t be at the lab in the morning?”

Harry chuckled, his familiar smirk falling to his face. “Darn, you foiled my plan, yet again. It looks like I’m going to take you on a very long walk down a short road, straight into the mouth of a tyrannosaurus.”

“Are you that keen on stealing my job?”

Harry shrugged, smirking at her again. “Maybe.”

As she grabbed a towel from the sink to dab at her shirt again, she rolled her eyes at the boy, who still wore the same wicked smile on his face. There were always times when Darcy wasn’t quite sure why they’d became so close in the first place, but there were times like this, when his smile lit up the entire kitchen, that she remembered why she always wanted to have him around.