Jack could tell Riddick was still pissed the second she walked into the bedroom. Kyle slept next to where his father sat, propped up, pretending to read the tablet he held when she found them.

"Mission accomplished," she said tentatively, tossing her sweater in the general direction of an empty laundry basket.

Rick didn't even act like he'd heard her. He just put down the tablet and reached over to turn off the lamp. He turned onto his side, his back to her and Kyle. Taking off her shoes and replacing her slacks with sweatpants, Jack let her tired body sink into her side of the bed. She let her arm come to rest around the only child she still had and sighed heavily, wondering how ugly things would get before they started to get better. If they ever got better...

"He's ex-military, he's got a million contacts in the underground, and I don't think I'd shed a tear for him if he died saving Cam and Rachel. Right now he's the only chance we've got. If you'd like to suggest a backup plan, I'm all ears."

"I don't trust him," Riddick growled, not even bothering to turn over and face her.

Jack propped her chin up on her fist, taking a moment to pause and look down at her sleeping son, wishing she could experience the peace of his ignorance, just this once. Riddick probably thought she went to Conte because she didn't have faith in him anymore. Little did he know, she never would've left the only baby she had left with anyone else in the universe that night. Not Conte, not anyone. She knew she'd return and find Kyle safe, because his father would be with him.

"No one trusts him. You saw how Pace treated him tonight. She's just as wary as we are, but even she knows he's the right guy for the job."

"He'll probably end up getting himself, Dallas, and both our kids killed. Is that what you want, Jack?" he demanded, finally sitting up and turning to glare at her in the darkness. "Is it?"

Jack slowly shook her head. "No, I don't want that. Today I failed as a mother. Until Dallas left, I should've kept the kids here. I thought they'd be safe in a public place with Cam watching them, but obviously I was wrong. Whatever happens to them, I'm going to have to live with it; but I don't have to send you off to die with them if that's their fate. Is that what you want, Riddick?" she demanded, sounding more cool and calculating than she felt.

I learned that from Rick... she realized. He'd always been able to hide his hurt and pain behind bluntness.

"I want them back, and I don't want their lives to rest in fucking Conte's hands!"

"He loves Dallas just as much as you love Cam and Rachel. He won't fail, I know he won't," Jack whispered, trying to reassure them both.

"Yeah, he told you that? He told you he loves his kid? I'm under the impression he didn't even tell his fucking wife that he gives a shit about Dallas!"

"Then why's he working with Vale? Why do you think Dom trusts him? Cody has bleach blond hair and dark brown eyes. He reminds Conte of his son. That's how I know he's onboard, even if he won't admit it."

"That's a pretty big leap, Jack."

"I know," she said quickly, trying so hard to express how she felt. "It's just--he's changed. If you'd seen him tonight, Rick, you'd know it too. He seems—grounded. Some really bad things happened to him, I think. Things we can't imagine even after all we've been through.

"He'll get them back. I know he will."

It took Jack hours to stop tossing and turning. He'd laid still, feigning sleep. Riddick wasn't sure how he'd missed it, but things had changed between him and Jack. It wasn't just the kids disappearing—it went deeper than that. The events of the day just brought it to the fore, forced him to see it.

There'd always been times when he wondered how they'd come so far together. His initial impression of her was a fourteen-year-old girl on the run, trying to hide her sex and weaknesses. Protecting her became important to him. They got on well—struck up conversation easily. She hadn't threatened him; made the best company he'd kept in over a decade. He came to respect her for her selflessness—her willingness to die for anyone who offered her some semblance of caring. He'd seen flashes of that same strength in Carolyn and it impressed him. Enough that he eventually came to believe he'd die for Jack if the need ever arose.

He'd played cat and mouse with the Empire's authorities for some time before the crash, and the game had worn him down. By the time he'd reached T2 with Johns, he'd been so close to breaking he could taste it. If he got stuck in one more pen there wouldn't be another daring escape. He'd become so tired, so numb he just didn't care anymore. About anything.

He'd believed people couldn't change.

Carolyn proved him wrong.

He'd believed he couldn't care about anything, take up a cause, he'd simply become too jaded.

Jack proved him wrong.

No matter how strong and isolated he'd become, it was a big, lonely universe. After getting a taste of having a companion, a friend on his level, that's when his life regained meaning. It was worth living as a free man if he could laugh and joke with Jack, and let her introduce him to the enjoyable aspects of society he'd missed all his life.

Then they'd been apart for a long time, and when he saw her again things had changed. She'd become the strong one, and he'd become weak.

If Riddick had been aware of how far he'd fallen, if he'd seen himself through Jack's eyes at that time, he would've turned and left without a glance back.

She didn't. She stayed and saved him. She chose him over another man—even though Riddick deserved to lose her. She married him in order to protect him from the Empire's forces, risking her own safety to do so. In her late teens, she put up with an awkward marriage of convenience to protect him—never knowing if he was about to leave her and go back out into the universe on his own.

It took nearly two years for them to consummate their marriage. Even after that, Riddick hadn't been entirely sure he'd stay with her forever. Ever since they'd returned to New Mecca and started over he'd been waiting for the other shoe to drop. After making love to his wife for the first time, he became increasingly paranoid—sure something would come along and disrupt the calm they'd built for themselves.

More than a year passed and Jack got pregnant with Cam. She survived both pregnancy and childbirth and their lives became so busy he didn't have time to worry anymore. It hadn't been until some years later, shortly after Rachel was born, that he'd realized they'd actually made it. They'd married, had two children, started careers as honest workers, and nothing had come along to destroy it. They were happy together. He enjoyed Jack's company and no longer imagined living without it. Not because she worshiped him, but because she'd seen him on his knees and instead of tearing out his throat—she'd helped him back to his feet.

She was his strength. Danger hadn't approached them for a long time, but now that it had Riddick needed to step forward and put himself between that danger and his family. He liked to believe he hadn't completely civilized. That rage that drove him for so many years lay dormant—but once it returned nothing would stand in his way.

Jack didn't understand. She had once, but she didn't anymore. He was a man who lived by a certain code—and according to that code, anyone who stole a child sacrificed their right to live. Nothing would stop him from slaughtering the people who'd taken their children. Nothing. Not his own fear of dying, and certainly not Jack's fear of losing him.

This was too big, too important.