Jack landed on the planet, lowering the ramp on her ship and zipping up her jacket as a defense against the wind. She, Pete and Zack heading out onto the New Meccan terrain, they walked into town, getting looks from the natives and went up to Imam's house. Jack knocked on the door and it was opened a short time later by a small girl.

"Jack!" she exclaimed and Jack smiled, picking the little girl up in her arms.

"Wow Ziza! You're getting so big!" She said and they entered the house.

"Father! Jack is home!" Ziza yelled and Imam came down the stairs from his study.

"Jacquelyn." He said nodding his head at her and she nodded back.

"Hello papa." She said and set Ziza down on her feet. She and Imam embraced warmly.

"Welcome home." He said as he pulled away. "Now introduce me to your friends."

"This is Zack and Pete, they're my Lieutenants. Papa, I've come to talk to you about him." the smile on Imam's face left and he nodded gravely.

"Come, we will talk in my study, Ziza go into the kitchen and join your mother." Imam said, Ziza walked away and Jack turned to her companions.

"You two stay down here."

"But Jack..." Zack started.

"That's an order Lieutenant!"

"Yes ma'am." They both said and watched as she and Imam went up the stairs, disappearing.
"I hate it when she pulls rank." Pete grumbled.

"I wish you had come to visit just to visit." Imam said as he straightened up his desk.

"I need to know where he is papa. Do you know?"

"I do."

"How?"

"He sent me a message a couple of years ago."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"He told me not to."

"Where is he?"

"He ordered me not to tell you."

"Please papa, I need to know where he is."

"I can't tell you."

"Please I'm begging you. Tell me where he is."

"Jacquelyn..."

"I love him papa!" Jack exclaimed and sank into the chair by the door. "I love him so much." She put her head in her hands and looked down at the floor. She felt Imam's hand on her shoulder and she looked up.

"UV 6." He said quietly and she stood, she wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his robes.

"Thank you papa." She said and he returned her hug, smoothing down her hair.

"Now will you stay a couple of days at least? Please Jacquelyn, I know Ziza has missed you and so has Lajjun. And I know that I have missed you greatly." Imam said and she nodded, pulling away.

"I'll stay two days. But no more, I need to see him again."

"I understand."

"Papa, how did the Company know that I knew Riddick?"

"You know the reports of the Hunter-Gratzner crash child. Our names were broadcasted across every news station."

"But we told them that Riddick had died, and that we were travelling with Zeke."

"Child, Riddick is infamous, someone at the Company must have recognized him."

"Then why didn't they try to grab him while he was here?"

"New Mecca is a sanctuary outside of Company control, they had no jurisdiction. He was safe here. Why do you ask?"

"They tried to get me to hand him over to them, so many times. But I wouldn't do it, I couldn't betray him like that, even if I knew where he was."

"He would be proud of you."

"I'd like to think so."

"I left your room exactly how it was when you left."

"Thank you."

"Now let's get back down to your companions." Imam said and they left the study.

Riddick sat in his bed, sharpening his knives. His instincts were telling him that something was coming, something big was going to happen. He's learned to listen to them, they're always right. When he was done he put he blades back on the wall and sat back down on his bed, removing the makeshift bandage from his forearm and checking the wound there. It had stopped bleeding, but would need stitches, something he didn't have. He'll have yet another scar, and the planets' too cold to worry about infection.

Once again his mind turned to its favorite subject, Jack. He wondered where she was now, if she ever thought about him, if she missed him. Was she angry with him for leaving? Does she hate him? His heart wrenched (reminding him that he did in fact have a heart) at the thought of her hating him. What if she did hate him? But what did it matter? He was never seeing her again anyway. She had to stay away from him, for her own safety.

Jack lay in her old bed, her body not used to the soft mattress after four years of a hard bunk. She got up and looked in the mirror. Her pajama shirt ended several inches from her navel showing toned pale stomach. She wasn't what you would call 'busty' but she wasn't completely flat chested either, 'large palm sized' an overly confident ex-boyfriend once said, he had meant it as a compliment, she hadn't taken it as such and that was the end of that relationship. She's had her share of boyfriends at the Academy, none of them serious and none of them long lasting. She wasn't a virgin, but that was an ugly memory from before the Hunter-Gratzner debacle that she would really not like to remember.

She snapped out of her thoughts and looked back into the mirror, her dark hair hung in waves to the middle of her back, her soft green eyes looking back at her. She wasn't supermodel beautiful, but she's been told that she has this quiet beauty that made you double take when you saw her. Her luminous pale skin glowed softly in the gloom, as if she had a light inside her, illuminating her from the inside out.

Lying back on her bed, she called up Riddick's image again and stared up at the ceiling, his face in front of her eyes instead of the earthy brown paint. Would he be happy to see her? Or would he be angry with her for finding him? Would he still be the same Riddick? Or would four years alone on an ice planet have changed him back to the Riddick that she's heard stories about, a primitive monster, a creature incapable of human emotion or interaction.
When she slept that night she dreamt of him, like she always did.