She woke in the dark, shivering with cold sweat. The big bed was still cold and empty. The unfamiliar room seemed hostile in every dark, wild way. The girl woke up scared already, and as moments passed in creaks and bangs and echoes from the street, she edged from scared to frozen solid. She couldn't remember her dream, but she didn't have to. Her heart leapt to her throat as she dared to slide slowly towards the edge of the bed. There was a crash from the street, and the girl scrambled to the floor and under the bed.

Crammed in the exact center of the space she had, Jack stopped her breath and listened for danger. Silence. The room was empty. "Lights?" She almost whispered in a shivering voice. Nothing happened. Of course nothing happened, she was talking through a mattress. She shut her eyes and tried to work herself up the courage. "Lights on!" She ordered with a faint edge of fear still in her voice.

Jack tried not to be too ashamed of herself when suddenly her face was illuminated, and she had to climb out from under the bed with pillow and blanket in tow. Riddick said it was okay to be scared, he said it keeps your mind awake. It's just being an irrational loser and hiding under the bed that's bad. But she was pretty sure he didn't know about that part.

Riddick was still gone. From the looks of it, he'd probably be back around dawn, sleep all day, and they'll switch over to night time. It was a part of some running equation of risk that Jack had never understood it and Riddick never explained. But 'two nights' was enough to know it was coming. She used that as her excuse, refusing to admit out loud that she was quite simply afraid to face her dreams alone again: it would be hard tomorrow night if she didn't sleep through the day.

Now that she had decided to stay awake, Jack didn't quite know what to do with herself. She paced the room a couple times, set her stance and practiced her jab-advance drill, used the shower… It was going to be ages­ before he came back. She tried the jab-retreat move a few times, but she was beyond clumsy on that, and there wasn't even anything she had to strike.

She felt gross again after putting her clothes back on, in more ways than one. Riddick had insisted that she wear girls' clothes, since she was registered on the HunterGratzner log as a boy. But he was also adamant that he could never pass as a father, and so slave garb it was. She wrapped her chain parallel to the forearm like he had showed her, and tried to send it out to hit the bathroom door. She didn't hold onto her end right, and the whole thing ended up crumpled like a dead snake on the floor. Riddick was trying to teach her to use her slave chain as a weapon, but somehow she just couldn't get it. Already disgusted with the exercise, she just left it there.

Bored. Hungry. Gross. Riddick had said to stay here, but he had also said that you do what you have to, and never apologize for taking care of yourself. And he had further said that he wasn't buying her new clothes.

She scooped up her cloak from the corner and turned it inside out; although the outside was a dark, shiny red color, the lining of it was black and of rougher material, and hopefully she could blend a little more that way. Opening the glass door, she stepped out onto the mock-balcony and looked down. Four stories down. Just hoping to God that the stupid cloak wouldn't get in her way, Jack climbed carefully over the railing, and then cautiously slid down on the bars to hang over the identical balcony below. Arcing her body, she dropped down to the next story. Now standing a full story below where she started, for a moment Jack just grinned, rubbed her sore arms, and relished the rush of adrenalin and sudden feeling of accomplishment. Now, two more to go.

She didn't realize until she had made it to ground level that her chain was still laying on the floor of their hotel room upstairs. For a minute she just stared up at the place she'd come from; she was so excited about her method of getting out, she had no idea how she would get back up there. She decided it didn't matter right now; she'd burn that bridge when she came to it. She recalled seeing a string of shops only a half-hour back, and Jack desperately needed out of these stupid, flimsy clothes.

- -

- -

You can not add to the being of a man without his permission, and Riddick had grown too wary of his fellow man long ago. He would be at the mercy of no one, and the consequences of that basic aloneness he considered well worth it. Most days.

You can not add, but to take requires no consent, and Riddick had plenty of experience with that. Taking of family, home, freedom were not enough. It was as if the experiences of his life had taken of him. Richard Riddick was not a man whose character was molded so much as carved. There had never been a guiding hand for him, no forgiven mistakes, and every new punishment had broken and burned and cut away from his soul. He was now like one of those great capitol buildings, looming forgotten after the system it represented had been overthrown, burned and blown to the fortified core, but inside that core… no one knows. If there ever was an entrance, it had been destroyed. But the few children bold enough to play there would swear that they heard something from inside, if anyone would listen to them.

But at this point Riddick didn't feel like a capitol building, or any other wordy metaphor that could be attached to him. Quite frankly, he was physically and emotionally exhausted. He didn't even bother to sneak back into the hotel; he just didn't want to have to think that hard, especially while squinting painfully against the coming dawn and a night full of streetlights. He just kicked down the service door.

It felt strange to use a key to get through a door, like the feeling you get when you revisit a secret memory. When he had locked the door again behind him, Riddick noticed that in the corner, where the girl's cloak was when he had left, was now also a small mesh shirt, tank top, and pair of shorts. He was too tired to deal with it, and there was no harm done this time, so Riddick just made a note to talk to her about the incredible stupidity of sleeping without clothes. He sat on the side of the bed and let his slow, mindless fingers unlace his boots. When he finally lay between the sheets, body too thankful for the mattress to complain about a lack of blanket, the figure he thought was asleep moaned.

"You smell gross, Riddick, where have you been?" She said, throwing him his half of the blanket. It fell over his face, and before he had managed to move it, he felt her burrow under her half, and under the sheet.

"Get dressed and go to sleep." Was all he responded, more than a little disturbed at the idea of the kid being there mostly naked, without anything between them. But he knew if she refused, he probably wouldn't have the energy to enforce it. It took enough energy just to speak.

"I am dressed." She said, sleepy but defiant. Riddick's eyes were blissfully closed under his goggles, but he felt her roll over to face him and heard her inhale softly. "Oh, Riddick, what happened?" His face was smeared with dried blood that he had wiped at but hadn't cleaned off.

He cracked an eye at her. Her arm was outside the blanket, and sure enough, she had on something dark and long-sleeved. "What are you wearing?" He demanded, so low it was almost a wordless rumble.

The girl suddenly had that scared, I-want-to-please-you look. "Well, it's cold out there, and you said I should take care of myself, so I thought-"

She wasn't seriously seeking his blessing for it now. "Go to sleep." He growled, more tired and angry that she had snuck out to really care why she had done it. The girl finally gave up and situated herself to sleep.

-

She woke up again midday, but the shakes faded quickly between the sunlight and the bulk of Riddick in the bed with her. For a few minutes Jack just sat up with her head in her hands. She hadn't really been asleep when Riddick had come in, but her boredom had gotten so great that she was down to lying in bed, hoping that somehow exhaustion would overtake fear and she'd get some rest. Riddick almost never noticed; she knew his senses were sharp enough, but she was pretty sure he did his best to ignore her when he came in at night.

She got up to use the restroom. The counter was empty. No credits, no food left for her. She had eaten a couple bars of candy while she was out—it was the only food there in the clothing shop, and she was too scared to try to break into a second building—but she had trusted that there would be a meal in the morning like he said, and hadn't really worried about it. Now she'd have to wait until he woke up. He probably forgot, she told herself. He was so tired, and from the looks of him there had been trouble.

She watched him sleep a moment, but was distracted by the sheer nastiness of him. If Riddick's face looked like that, she could only imagine the rest of him. Jack wrinkled her nose at the thought of all that gross being in the bed. She had no idea what could have happened last night, but it must have been bad to make him so exhausted that he just fell into bed in that state. He was usually so obsessive about stuff like that, keeping your bed clean and your wounds taken care of. And she couldn't pretend it wasn't her fault. He would have never stopped for the night if not for her; he would have probably been at the port by now. And what a considerate way to repay him, running out like that and risking getting nicked on something so stupid as being cold and not wanting to wait.

She wanted to make it up to him somehow, even just a little. She was so selfish, it felt like she never helped out. Jack ran a clean washcloth under the warm water, and very carefully brought it to wipe the blood from his jaw, where it looked like he had been hit with brass knuckles.

In a flash, she was staggering backward without breath. She saw a glint of steel at the end of a huge dark arm, and the fine, bright spray of blood fanning out of her body. The hellish vision of shock even noted the thin line of blood that had been carried away by the blade, and how at the point a single drop was flung away like something stupid and unwanted. She fell against the wall, wide-eyed. Riddick had spun to his other shoulder to face her, clawlike shiv threateningly bared like an extension of his body. If there was any human emotion on his face at all, it was hidden behind the mask of those welding goggles.

When Riddick's mind had caught up with his body, the damage had already been done. He sat up from his instinctive defensive position; the blood on the blade soaked into the sheet when it was pressed down under his shifting weight.

"Jack." The way he said it, it was almost a question, as if asking the girl what had just happened. He saw the pain had sunk in, how her body was curled protectively around the hurt, eyes unfocused, her shivering breath and the small cough punctuated by a barely audible whimper. She shook with the effort of restraining tears.

Riddick had no knowledge of how to comfort, was in fact physically repulsed by what he had done. But wounds to the torso are not to be trifled with. The way she was positioned, he couldn't see the cut itself, but her shirt was already darkened with blood. He lifted her by the arms to the bed where he could deal with it, grimacing at the girl's cry of pain. When he had her laid out, he saw why.

He had slashed her across the chest. The cut wasn't deep, but it was big. Riddick grabbed a damp towel from the floor and pressed it to the wound. If she had been a little taller, if she had been standing close enough to strangle as his body had assumed… she would have been gutted. He could only imagine waking up to his hand hot with fluid, the kid bleeding to death on the floor. He picked up the courtesy phone and dialed the front desk.

"Room 407. I need a bottle of vodka." Riddick ordered bluntly into the phone. Jack didn't understand what he was doing, but she heard the tones of the teller's response, something along the line of 'What kind of place do you think this is'. "Now." He snarled, and hung up.

He put both hands on the towel again, squeezing his eyes shut against her gasp of pain as he applied more pressure. "What happened?" He said. Under such stress, the line between question and statement was getting hazy.

"I just wanted to help." Her voice was fairly strong, at least, a sign the pain wasn't too bad. She even laughed weakly. "I know how you hate blood in bed."

"I told you never to wake me." With everything else going on, he hadn't even registered the stripe of cold and clean across his face. She really was just trying to clean his wounds. She broke eye contact and turned her head to the side; answer enough. She knew, but hadn't realized the seriousness of it. He never had told her why she shouldn't, just told her not to and left it at that. He hadn't told her, but she was ashamed for not knowing anyway. There was a knock on the door, and he let it serve as the distraction they both needed.

He threw the blanket over her body, covering her face like she was dead, before opening the door. No one really cares how a man treats his slave, but there is an unspoken rule of no witnesses, no problem. No one is willing to risk their neck on a lie detector for some slave owner. The door shut angrily. When Riddick came back and the girl uncovered herself again, she saw him take a quick swig of the bottle before setting it down. If it was possible, she started looking even more nervous.

Riddick dug into his pockets. Contrary to popular belief, Riddick's ever-present cargos have nothing to do with style. When all you've got is the clothes on your back, pockets are a valuable asset. He came out with Jack's sewing kit, fished in another and got a small baggie of pills, no doubt stolen that night. All efficiency and practicality, he reached over her body and retrieved the shiv again, cutting one of the pills carefully in half. Her body was so small, and he had no idea how strong this stuff was.

- -

When it was over, Riddick sat with elbows on knees on her side of the bed. His day's sleep was shot, and not only because of the spilt blood that was currently soaking in and drying in the bed. Something roiled inside him, so much of it he feared it would escape, something he couldn't describe. He knew the source, it was the girl, lying unconscious in the place that had been his. But what is it? And what to do about it?

- -

Jack woke, and there were no shakes. She found herself cloak-free, riding piggyback down a street under the late afternoon rainclouds. The warmth conserved where she was pressed against his back felt wonderful in contrast to the cold air. She felt the weight of her chain wrapped around her waist under her shirt. Her shirt, the one she had gotten herself with her mock army cargos.

"Hi." She said, still a little sleepy and stupid. "Who are you?"

"Your father." Riddick growled, low enough so no one else could hear. He was wearing a light blue button-up shirt, and a darker hat pulled down low. She tried not to laugh, she knew it would hurt, but Jack just couldn't help herself. He looked like a tourist.

-

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Yay, I did it! You have no idea how exciting this is for me, I have never written anything worthwhile this quickly, especially over such a long interval. I have such a short attention span for stories, and such a slow writing process. Anyway, reviews invited of course, both bad and good.

Kinda random question: Does anyone know the name of that trick that they always show in movies, where the hero 'jumps' straight from lying on their back to standing on their feet? Please review or PM me if you know, it's driving me insane.