Just a little sommat I cooked up while trying to rid myself of a terrible case of writer's block on my Fast and the Furious fic. Damn stupid writer's block, and not only that I now have animator's block as well! I'm so gonna fail university! Oh well, this kinda helped me to work some of it away, but be gentle, it's my first pitch black fic. The story takes place as if CoR never happened. Hope you like and please feel free to tell me exactly what you think! Okay. Thankies for taking the time to read this if you are, I'm not sure when the final part will be up but it's not gonna take too long!

Well, happy reading I guess. I won't do a summary coz it'll spoil it!

Thankies!

Gem

xxx

The Job (part 1).

She thumbed on her lighter causing a brief amber flash to play across her young face as she lit the cigarette that she held firmly between her lips…and then darkness resumed it's reign. She took a long, deep drag of it's toxic breath and held it inside her for an extended heartbeat, ensuring that all the nicotine possible could filter into her blood stream and cure the craving, if only for a little while. Then she blew the bluish smoke out in a jet of hot air before giving the cigarette a firm tap, scattering ash across the table that she knew was before her.

She sat in the dark. In the pitch blackness of her cell, waiting for them to send her next kill to her.

Back when she had been a newbie in the Slam, barely 14 years old, they had tried to take her, to use her for their pleasure. She had X-ed out seven guards that day. Seven. And with nought for a weapon save her bootlaces. She smirked remembering the fray, rewarding herself extra points for…creativity. Then the Slam Boss had recognised her potential and cut her in on a little deal he had going. The guards would leave her pretty much alone if she disposed of the inmates that got onto the Boss' wrong side and the prison workers and officials that got in his way. She had agreed. No question. Sure, she could've handled the guards but at least being on the Boss' 'unofficial' workforce she didn't have to sleep with her eyes open all the time. And she got certain privileges such as the smoke that she was enjoying at that moment.

Unusually she knew who her next kill was. She'd known from the moment she'd heard the rumours flying around the cellblocks, food hall and the recreation areas. None of the conversations were directed at her though. Very few ever were. The inmates had learned to stay away from Jack B. Badd on that first day that she had been imprisoned. But she heard the whispers none-the-less and she had revelled in the knowledge that her next kill, her new job, was to ghost the very man who had abandoned her to this fate those five years ago when she had been the tender age of 14. The man who the Boss considered a liability and more trouble than he was worth. He'd already broken out of the prison before so God only knew why they were bringing him back again! Butcher's Bay was allegedly the best triple-max prison that there was in the universe but it had been a simple stepping stone on her new job's way through the many galaxies. He'd escaped from countless other smaller double and single-max prisons without so much as a single misstep along the way which was probably one of the reasons that he found it so easy to 'do' Butcher's Bay. He'd had lots of practice. Seemed that no-where could hold him and both Jack and the Boss knew that a second time in Butcher's Bay would be no different. She'd have put money on him being there no longer than 48 hours max…that was if she hadn't been given the task of making sure he never broke out of anywhere ever again. Sure, security had been quadrupled since the last time he had graced the cells but to someone like Richard B. Riddick that was merely a minor discrepancy.

The Boss had come to her with her new job a full 24 hours after the rumours had started tearing around the cells like wildfire and as with all the others, she simply nodded and told him that her cell door would be open. Welcome to my parlour said the spider to the fly…

That's where she was sat. In the shadows so thick that a normal person would be able to see nothing. However, she saw everything, even if it was in shades of silver and purple. The bright glow from the end of her lit cigarette stabbed into her shined eyes with an almost painful twinge. She could even see the faint wisps of smoke that curled from her lips as clearly as if it were daylight.

She'd sought out the 'doctor', the one that the gossipmongers called Pope Joe, the instant that she had been let out of solitary confinement after her little killing spree. Deep in the bowels of the prison she found him after forcing her way down into the service hatches and following the sewer pipes. The only reason that she had survived so long down in the underbelly of Butcher's Bay was because of her quick mind. Otherwise she would have died with the horrors down there. Perhaps a little of her did. She never spoke of it, though there was very few who she spoke to and even fewer who dared to ask. Pope Joe had agreed to perform his operation on her with little need of the forceful persuasion that she had been lead to believe was necessary. Twenty Menthol-Cools her ass! All he had asked for was that she fix his beloved 'voice-box', an ancient contraption that played music from small, circular silver plates which he called 'CD's'. Jack had gone to town and modified it so that Joe could pick up the laser-impulses that were sent universe wide to be picked up by all ship computers to entertain the crew with the latest popular music and idle gossip. She had often gone down to see Pope Joe before the Boss had decided to move her to the triple-max section of Butcher's Bay where he had some…pressing business for her to take care of. Pope Joe had been one of the few people that she had trusted and she had missed him terribly when they had moved her. At the age of 16 they had tossed her into the ring with the 'big boys'…and she'd had them all wrapped around her thin, scarred, lethal little fingers within a matter of days.

Suddenly, the stale air shifted slightly, barely a breeze against her cheek and though he stood behind her where her darkness-invading gaze could not see him, she knew he was there. She could feel the two luminous silver irises that mirrored her own boring a hole into the back of her head and she smiled to herself, taking another deep draw on her cigarette, placing her shiv down on the table and spinning it with her free hand.

"Hello…Riddick." She sneered, smoke curling from her lips as she spoke his name.

In a soundless flash that would have been easily missed in a blink of her eyelid, he had moved around the table into her view and stabbed his own shiv point down between her moving, slender fingers, ceasing the blade's spinning and pinning her hand palm down. Jack didn't even blink.

"I told you to stay with Imam!" his deep voice came out as an animalistic growl that caused her smirk to broaden as she glanced up and saw him in the glowing tints and tones that he must see. Sleek, silver, mercury. He was beautiful, even more so than she remembered but a little part of her heart tugged with remorse at not being able to see the deep, warm bronze colour of his skin. Jack stamped that thought down almost before it had a chance to blossom into being and instead continued by giving a blasé shrug, withdrawing her hand from the deeply embedded shiv to suck at the drop of blood that jewelled the skin where he had nicked her.

"You're getting sloppy, Riddick." She taunted in a mocking tone, ripping the shiv from the table, eliciting a great crack of protest from the wood. She placed the blade down beside her own and leaned her meagre weight upon the table, taking another puff of fumes. Her gleaming eyes locked with his.

"I told you to stay in New Mecca!" Riddick repeated, fury tainting his growl this time and she gave an exaggerated sigh, rocking her chair back on two legs and folding her arms behind her head flicking ash from her cigarette behind her.

"There was nothing to hold me there." She replied, her voice defiant. "The only thing that kept me in one place for longer than a few days left after a couple of months." She took a final drag on the stump of a smoke left in between her fingers and then stubbed it out on the bare wood of the table.

His laughter barked out around the cell but it held little amusement, if any.

"You're blaming me for your problems, Jack?" he scoffed. "I saved your lily-ass!"

It was Jack's turn to laugh. A cold, bitter sound.

"And that gives you some sort of control over me!" she snorted. "Shit, Riddick, you're denser than I thought!"

His hand shot out of the darkness, snatching up his shiv but Jack was quicker, stabbing her blade between his moving fingers, mimicking his earlier manoeuvre. She shook her head and clicked her tongue in mocking admonishment.

"Like I said, Riddick. Sloppy, very sloppy!" she sneered and his silvery eyes flashed dangerously. She knew that she was playing with fire…and as it happened, she enjoyed the burn!

And it burns, burns, burns, Ring of fire! She sang to herself in her head, allowing her smirk to widen.

"Cocky, Jack. Very cocky!" he imitated before leaning towards her slightly so that his face filled her shined view. "I've been hearin' a lot about you, Jack. They been sayin' that you're the next big thing. Bigger than me even!"

"Maybe I am." She bit back, barely after that last word had left his lips. Her eyes burned platinum fire with challenge.

"You wanna test that theory, Jackie-girl? 'Cause you're startin' to try my patience."

Jack gave another smirk that bordered on the offensive before kicking her feet to rest atop the table between them. She crossed her legs at the ankles and returned her arms to fold behind her head. She remained silent for several long minutes simply matching Riddick's invasive stare with one of her own. Finally she snorted.

"Perhaps." She replied with a wicked curl of her lips. "It is what the Boss is paying me for after all and pretty soon I'll be able to buy my way outta this shit-hole!"

Riddick mirrored her silence for an equally long spell before also moving to sit back in his chair.

"Is that a fact?" he queried, a slight mocking tone colouring his deep voice. Jack could almost feel his desire to laugh at the audacity of her comments, though which one was more amusing to him she wasn't entirely sure. That made her angry. It stung deep in her chest and she reflexively clenched her teeth, if only for a split second. That was all the time that Riddick needed to notice her ire and his grin broadened slowly.

"Sloppy, Jack." He said breaking the silence by throwing her words back at her for a second time. "Didn't you learn not to reveal your weakness to your opponent?" this time admonishment and condescension tinted his words and Jack narrowed her mercury eyes.

"Anger is not my weakness." She retorted, though she kept her feelings in considerably tighter check. "It is my strength!"

"Is that what you feel when you do it?" he enquired calmly, his face deadpan.

"Pardon!" even five years in Butcher's Bay could not erase all of the etiquette that Imam had drummed into her over and over again. Riddick smirked to himself at that little revelation. His Jack was still in there somewhere, he just had to find her.

"I said is that what you feel when you kill all those men that the Boss sends to you?" he paused and leaned onto the table top, lacing his large, calloused fingers together in the gesture that showed his dominance over the situation. 'Alpha-male' it said to all who cared to look, but Jack barely gave it a second glance. "Or is it simply your anger at me for leaving you?"

Jack stayed deathly still for so long that Riddick thought she had gone into shock. Then as he had been about to call to her she cocked her head to one side as she had so many times when she had been that innocent little girl considering one of his requests or queries. However, the voice that this Jack used was icy, not even a sliver of her former self trickled through the façade that Riddick was certain that she had erected to keep him out.

"No." she commented, drawing him out of his contemplations. "I'm not angry at you because you left me, Riddick." She shifted her weight so that she sat forwards, closer to him, returning her feet to the floor. "I'm angry because you saved me and damned me all in one moment!"

Her admission shocked both herself and Riddick and they stared at each other in open mouthed surprise. She hadn't meant to let him in on that little secret; she hadn't wanted to let herself get involved with him again! All she needed to do was snatch up her shiv and thrust it home, to his heart, the place where her memory obviously still resided.

'Shit!' She thought tearing her eyes away from Riddick's confused gaze. She was doing everything wrong and this one little misstep may very well have killed her ass! But the emotional attachment was there none-the-less, had always been there. It had never died no matter how hard she had tried to kill it.

"Want to explain that little admission to me?" Riddick asked at length and Jack felt her eyes unwillingly snap back to his as if drawn be some magnetic impulse.

"Not really." She replied, her voice barely a whisper. She found herself neither willing nor able to tear her stare from his. Pure silver burned into pure silver flashing back as if two mirrors stood face-to-face reflecting their own image in the surface of the other.

"Talk to me, Jack." Riddick implored and Jack was suddenly reminded of the last time that they had spoken, five years ago.

-Flashback-

She sat, knees drawn up to her chest, chin resting between her bony kneecaps and arms crushed to her body between her torso and her legs.

She'd known that this day was coming. She'd felt it in the atmosphere about the house. She'd seen it in the way that Imam and his newly taken wife glanced at each other when Riddick was in the room. So it should have come as little surprise to her. She shouldn't have felt so desperately desolate as she did but the tears wouldn't stop. She uttered no sound, simply sat huddled like that on the roof terrace, beneath the stars.

At first she had been terrified of the night, of the darkness and understandably so after the ordeal that they had been through. However, the night had become her companion. Her confidant. No one could see her crying in the dark. No one but the night could see her agony.

"I can see you, Kid." His voice curled and twisted until it mingled with the pitch blackness, almost as if he had read her mind.

She sighed and shrugged. The silent treatment. She knew that she was being a pathetic little child, but it was her way of dealing with the enormity of his impending absence.

He moved closer to where she sat, her back against the small wall that enclosed the murderous suntrap of a terrace.

"You gonna tell me what's up?" he asked and Jack forced herself to remain silent and still, not even allowing a breath to pass her tight lips for fear that her will would crumble and she would let him talk his way out of this wordless punishment that he deserved.

Riddick stood for a long moment before realising that he wasn't going to get a reply anytime soon.

"Okay, Jack, okay. We'll play it your way." He sighed rubbing a large hand over his freshly shaven head. He crouched down beside her, facing her, resting his elbows on his knees and linking his hands together before him. "You gotta understand, Kiddo. I gotta be cruel to be kind."

"That makes no sense!" she scowled, more angry at herself for having broken her self-imposed vow of silence. She scrambled away from him and stood on the opposite side of the roof-garden, staring out at the diamond studded sky, clutching futilely at herself to keep the warmth in.

Riddick was still for what seemed an eternity before Jack heard the rustle of his clothing, assuming that he was leaving and that she was safe finally to take a deep, shuddering, emotion-burdened gasp. She clamped her eyes shut tightly and more tears slipped silently and unbidden from their pale jade depths.

"It's not like I want to leave you…" his voice murmured from directly behind her, so close that the air between them seemed to vibrate with each rumbling syllable. She started in surprise, jolting her eyes open as his large hands cupped her thin shoulders, the heat from his palms spreading down through her chilled bones. "I have to leave…"

"But why though!" Jack demanded spinning in his grasp and staring wide and watery eyed up at him, forgetting her earlier tactic of mute fury.

Riddick shook his head as if it weighed too much for his neck to hold, refusing for a moment to meet her gaze.

"Don't look at me like that!"

But Jack didn't listen.

Good! she thought bitterly. Let his conscience fester with guilt!

She curled her long, slender fingers into fists, taking handfuls of his sleeveless black vest top.

"Please, Riddick, please don't leave me!" she pleaded, not caring whether he saw her tears or not anymore. She was desperate, not above getting down on her knees and begging if she had to. Her pride was already in tatters and she'd long since stopped caring that it was. "Please!" she punctuated her last word with a thump of her white-knuckled fist against his chest but Riddick caught her wrist before she could repeat the action.

"Don't, Jack!" he warned though with little of his usual ferocity.

She was a smart girl. She knew that she couldn't go with Riddick, wherever it was that he felt that he needed to go. She understood that, knew that she would put not only her life in danger if she went but his and so she had never once argued to go with him. What she couldn't comprehend was why he had to leave. Why he couldn't stay with her and Imam and Imam's wife, in New Mecca.

"Why do you have to go?" she queried, not caring that her voice wavered inconsolably. "Why d'you have to leave us?"

Riddick answered her with and uncharacteristically soft smile and removed one of his hands from her skinny shoulder to smooth down her chaotic hair that had begun to grow back.

"I need to protect you."

"You can do that here!" Jack protested, standing on her tiptoes to get a better view of Riddick's face as he spoke, but he shook his head again.

"The mercs will come. I'm sure of it. The captain of the ship that picked us up knew who I was, he just didn't have the guts 'n' guns to take me down there and then. He won't have held his tongue for too long. There'll be hundreds on their way here as we speak."

Jack looked down at the ground beneath their feet, disappointment and despair coiling in her chest like a frigid spring.

"So, you're gonna go and save your ass and leave us to deal with the fuckers!" she challenged a little more harshly than she had intended, unable to look at him as she spoke for in her heart she knew that it wasn't true.

"You know it ain't like that." Riddick replied. "If I get sighted somewhere else, they'll leave New Mecca and Helion Prime altogether. You and Holy Man and Mrs Holy Man will be free."

Jack desperately fought the amusement that bubbled in her chest at Riddick's new nickname for Imam's wife. He's was playing dirty, bringing out the heavy artillery and trying to make her laugh for they both knew that she would not stay enraged at him for very long if she did. Instead, Jack focused upon her irritation that Riddick's reasoning was proving infallible. She hated to admit that it made total and utter sense and hated even more that it was all to protect her

She gave an erratic breath and her tears dried slowly even though her emotions still raged in a torrent.

"So…" she mumbled finally, a numb feeling settling in her belly. "Guess this is it. You are going tomorrow, aren't you? That's why you came to speak to me tonight, right?" she allowed herself a miserable chuckle.

"That's right." He replied, barely above a whisper. His hand smoothed over her hair again but it traversed suddenly, titling her chin so that she looked up into his silvery eyes. "Got somethin' for you." He muttered after some time and Jack forced a sour snort.

"I'm 14 years old, Riddick! 15 in four and a half months. I'm a big girl. I don't need presents to make me feel better. I'm not that conceited!" She quipped. "Anyway, shouldn't you be the one getting the presents for going away?"

Riddick smiled, looking more like his normal self.

"It ain't a present, Kid." He chuckled, leaning down suddenly, close to her face. "Gonna give you a promise, Jack."

"Promise of what?" she asked cautiously, sensing that something wasn't quite as it seemed. She quirked and eyebrow at his hesitance to reply but as she drew in a lungful of air to mutter a smart remark, Riddick leaned forwards and pressed his lips to hers firmly.

It was a light, tender kiss though not like the chaste ones that Imam and his wife placed on her head or cheek when she said 'goodnight'. No, it made Jack's head reel as if the world around her was spinning like a merry-go-round. Riddick was kissing her! A scrawny 14 year old girl, though it remained decidedly short and sweet. She understood the reason for that. She wasn't stupid by any means even if her head was particularly foggy at that moment.

Riddick pulled back after an extended heartbeat leaving her lips buzzing in his wake, his shined eyes seeking hers but Jack held them closed tightly as if to emblazon that memory forever into her mind.

"A promise that when you've grown up, when I don't have mercs snappin' at my heels, that I'll come back for that kiss…I'll come back for you!" Riddick said after a breathless pause on both their parts.

Silence. What could she say? Any notion of speech that flitted through her mind only seemed as if it would sunder the moment. So she stood stock still, staring at the insides of her eyelids, hearing the blood rushing in crashing waves in her ears.

Riddick's gaze turned to concern when she didn't open her eyes after a good few minutes.

"Talk to me, Jack!" he demanded, almost fearful of her reaction. He gave her shoulders a gentle shake and her jade eyes fluttered open, clearing as she glanced up at him properly.

"Hurry up and leave." She whispered, her voice faint, whether with controlled anger or uncontrollable sadness Riddick couldn't determine and he allowed a pained expression to colour his face in a brief moment of distress. Quickly smothering his display of weakness, Riddick gave a resigned nod.

"Okay, whatever you want, Kiddo." He sighed with defeat, turning his back and making for the door that lead back into the house.

"The sooner you leave, the sooner you can come back!" Jack called after him and he paused mid-stride, letting her words bounce around his mind until he could comprehend them.

Almost before he had time to turn, Jack had thudded into his chest, encircling her thin arms about his neck and drawing herself up to him, locking her similarly as skinny legs about his waist as if her life depended upon it.

"That's right, Jack. I will come back." He whispered into her ear, crushing her to him with increasing force.

Those where the last words that were spoken between them…

-End Flashback-