As promised: Riddick's POV...

I do not own Pitch Black, Dark Fury, Chronicles of Riddick, or Riddick, nor do I own their characters or the story lines. I own only Rehtaeh and any new characters that I may add, and any plot changes that may happen within.

I really hope you enjoy the story! :D

Chapter 4

*Riddick*

'They say most of your brain shuts down in cryo-sleep. All but the primitive side, the animal side. No wonder I am still awake…' he thought restlessly as he allowed his senses to once again reach out into the ship. The trip had overall been interesting. He had picked up several things right from the start of the trip. 'Transporting me with civilians, Sounded like 40, 40 plus.'

'Heard an Arab voice, some hoodoo holy man, probably on his way to New Mecca. But what route. What Route?' He knew the straight lines well enough, but this was a trade route, basically off-roading when you really thought about it.

'Smelled a woman. Sweat, boots, tool belt, leather. Prospector type. Free settlers. And they only take the back roads.' He could sense her down the way a bit along with her husband, they smell like each other.

'And here is my real problem. Mr. Johns, the blue eyed devil. Plannin' on takin' me back to slam, only this time he picked a ghost lane.' He could tie him down, put him in a bit and blindfold, but it was only a matter of time before he came up with a plan and he got out. Johns knew it.

'Long time between stops; long time for something to go wrong.'

The growling and moaning started about a week into the trip. The beeping and smell of a med unit came up from below. He knew there were people down there, he had overheard the Captain and the Doctor talking briefly about the Dignitary's daughter. She was the kidnapping victim that had been all over the news. Seems she was not doing so well. It wasn't long before the screaming started. Sounded painful. On and off the girl would scream and then there would be long periods of silence, he could hear her heavy panting breaths as she struggled with her illness. He wondered what it was they were doing to the poor girl, shouldn't they give her something for the pain?

He could hear everything going on below, and in usual protocol the Doctor gave a running commentary on all of the procedures she had to do and why. He got a hell of a lot of information, just by listening to her work. When they had first boarded the patient had stank like a chemical concoction, a ticking time bomb of chemicals. Was she a hype like Johns? She didn't smell like Morphine. Her scent had been more of a mix of various hospital smells, hell it smelled as though she had swallowed the entire pharmacy.

It was no wonder, according to the Doctor the record logs they found with the girl in the warehouse locker, indicated that there had been at least fifty three different experiments, and countless other tests had been done, and chemical after chemical had been pumped into her paralyzed body. With no way to rid her body of the toxins, they had sat inside her frozen body waiting for the day she was released. It was taking this long just to purge the toxins from her body. No wonder the girl was screaming. Sixteen weeks of noise and commotion until finally it stopped, then the poor Doc had a new problem, the girl had dropped into a coma. There had been problem after problem with that girl; the Doctor definitely had her hands full with that one.

It was twenty weeks before the girl was up and walking around. She stayed below until the Doc and the Guard checked themselves into cryo. It was then that he got her first visit. He could hear her poking around, exploring the ship. She had started below decks, making her way to the very rear of the ship and then working her way up the main level. She smelled completely different than she had when she first arrived on the ship, the chemical smell was long gone, and she smelled clean. There was a spicy scent to her as well, like cinnamon or cloves. Not sweet and cloying, more like spiced cider. Sweet and tart at the same time. 'Hmmm, interesting.'

She had stopped just outside of his cryo unit. He could tell that she was looking at him. She didn't smell of fear, but then he did look as though he were securely contained within his little chamber. Funny what contraptions like blindfold, bits and skinny chains could do for the supposed security of the common people. He growled at her and still she had shown no signs of fear. In fact she had placed her hand on the glass right in front of his chest. He took in a breath trying to catch a better whiff of her scent, and then she spoke catching him off guard. Her voice was soft and husky, a voice that was raspy from not using it for a long time. It was the first time he had heard her speak to anyone. "Hmm. You are like me. Awake during cryo. Very curious."

Awake during cryo. Had she just told him that she had spent all of her time watching her captors experiment on her while waiting for the ransom drop? Fuck that was brutal. He heard her hand move down the glass, and traced the words lit up from the outside of his pod. She said nothing for a long time, like she was studying the words on the glass, couldn't she read? She spoke again, the raspy quality had changed some, it had become more husky and intimate, like she was sharing a dark secret. "I had hoped to never see those words again, and yet here they are, in living color. They give every convict a nickname you know? Mine was Voodoo, cause of all the needles. Maybe someday you can tell me yours."

Wait. What? She was a con? That was not the word on the street. Every news log he had read for the past six months had been about the missing kidnap victim, the murder of her parents and then her courageous survival story. He growled again and moved his head forward, he took a deep breath, Apple cider or apple pie, sweet and spicy and tart. He could eat her up. Like the Big Bad or the Big Evil that everyone called him. "I apologize for keeping you awake, and for the noise. I, um, I just wanted to thank you. You kept me alive for the last few weeks. Crazy right?"

He lifted his head, in surprise at her words. What the hell? She chuckled softly and walked away. "Thanks again, have a good night."

Well that was a little twist. It definitely made this journey a little more interesting. She came by a few more times, she didn't say anything just passed her hand over the door of the capsule in front of his chest as she passed by on her way to the disposal unit. It was the second day after she had visited that she went on her tirade. He could hear her screaming below about going home. He heard something metallic ping off of the wall, then she went ballistic. Pounding on the wall, throwing shit around; the whole nine yards. She was having a complete conniption fit. Until she finally collapsed in a crying fit. He usually was not the type to be sympathetic to the emotional weepy chicks, but to be locked up for five months, be completely brutalized, and to find out your entire family was dead would make the most sane people go out of their mind as well. Considering how much he liked his freedom, he could definitely relate.

The following morning he heard her get up shower and change. She lingered below for a long time before she finally climbed the stairs, she was quiet, her feet barely making any noise on the steps or on the grated floor as she approached. She stopped and stood still as a statue in front of him for several long moments before she spoke. Her voice was filled with guilt and a touch of sorrow. "I am back to apologize again, as you can probably tell, I seem to be having an issue with rage."

He almost could not believe it. She was concerned that she had disturbed him. She was worried that she had annoyed him. He nodded once to indicate that he had heard her and acknowledged her apology. Then her husky voice continued in the darkness, "I have been in an ice bucket for five hundred years, so I am dealing with a few things that I couldn't exactly work out while frozen. You know what it is like though, to be awake on the inside, watching the world pass you by? You at least can move a bit, I was paralyzed. Old cryotech, the Doc says that the tech has changed, but I just can't seem to force myself to go back in to one of these boxes. I don't trust it. Anyhow, I just wanted to tell you that it won't happen again. I am pretty sure that I have worked it out of my system."

What the Fuck? This woman must be completely out of her mind, The Doc had told the Captain that the girl had been under the kidnappers control for five months, not half a millennium. So who was lying? Even if she was telling him the truth, since when did he seem like the trust worthy secret keeper type? Or maybe it was because he was the sole person on this tin can that could even listen to a word she said. Five hundred years of not being able to communicate must have knocked some of her screws loose, for her to even consider him as her confidante. "Three days have passed since the Doc went into Cryo and I just seem to be falling apart. There is just so much rage I can't seem to contain it, and there is no one here that I can spar with to get it out of my system. I miss that the most you know? It used to be so easy to find someone to spar with when everything got too much. They are all gone now. Dead and gone."

He heard her place her hand in front of his chest, and as she tapped her index finger along to the steady beat of his heart he realized suddenly why she kept putting her hand on the glass. She could hear his heart beat. She had thanked him for keeping her alive for weeks on end. It had been is heart beat? What the hell? Her scent had changed again, she smelled of blood. She must have messed up her hand during her violent outbreak because the smell was strongest right in front of him, but he could smell her menses as well. That explained the erratic emotional distress. PMS must be a bitch after half a millennium. She turned away from his pod and whispered, "Thanks for, um, listening to my bullshit, and putting up with my screaming. Have a good night."

She was gone again. The next day she changed up her routine. She spent her mornings below decks, he could hear her moving around, and it sounded like she was working out. She must be shadow boxing. She had said that she missed sparring. He wondered if she had any skill. Then she would come up and sit in the middle of the passenger bay and make scratching noises on something. It took him a few beats to figure out that she was drawing, or sketching on a paper pad. It was an old art form. Yes, she was definitely in for some adjustments when she got to her destination. There was a lot that had changed in the past five hundred years, and so far all she had seen was the inside of one old ship.

When he heard the fire crackers go off he thought that she was having another rage fit. But no, he heard her below him in her little solitary unit; she was as surprised as he was. And then all hell broke loose. Alarms blaring, lights flashing, he could see the flicker under the edges of his blind fold.

He could hear a couple of crew members opening their pods and waking up, there was confusion and yelling as they tried to land the ship. He could hear the voodoo girl below trying to secure herself to anything as the ship was shaken to pieces in the atmosphere, and then during the free fall. She didn't scream, he could hear her grunts of exertion as she tried to maneuver herself into a safe place for the impact. Other than the slightest spike in anxiety, she didn't really register any fear.