37. Irritation and Affection
Jack rolled over on the bunk, her hand landing on a soft, warm body, startling her awake. She was halfway off the bed when a firm hand caught her and pulled her back.
"Where ya think yer goin'?" The sleepy and gruff voice floated out of the darkness like a ghost. It wasn't female; it didn't frighten her: Don's voice.
She wasn't in prison, or locked in by Hypatia. Jack couldn't remember any dreams, which was fairly unusual, as she was habitually plagued by nightmares.
"Bathroom," she croaked out, suddenly feeling too close to the old man and wanting some space.
He let her up without letting her go, and turned her a bit with one hand still on her arm.
"Three paces, straight that way," he whispered kindly. "And don't try to sneak out." That sounded more like him.
Half a smile curved on lips un-used to a genuine smile. Jack frequently grinned, just to keep em all guessing. She turned her head towards Don as if she could see him, and wondered again if this…thing… would be impossible to continue in the light. Friends with Satan?
Jack stayed in the bathroom a few extra minutes just to think things through. It didn't track, but in the dark, somehow, it seemed okay. She didn't notice she was biting her nails to the quick again, until she tasted blood, the hand was still numb. She brushed it impatiently against her thigh and stepped toward the door.
Maybe she could sneak past Don? Did he fall back asleep? Where would she go if she did? She was still lost in the dark.
The very idea of walking around in the blackness with only the ghosts in her head for company made the strangeness of sleeping fully clothed next to the old man she hated seem a little less… funky.
Jack opened the door as quietly as she could, not really intending to leave the cabin, but just by habit. She held her breath and listened a minute. She couldn't hear Don snoring. In fact, she couldn't hear him at all. She shuddered briefly, thinking he'd left her alone in the dark. A tiny sound told her otherwise…
Jack figured Don must be standing by the door, waiting for her to make her break. She smiled into the blackness, knowing he could see her.
"Expecting me to run?"
"Yup." His voice was right where the door should be.
"I wanted to."
"Yeah."
"But, I didn't..."
"You heard me shift my weight…"
"I wasn't, anyway," she added quickly.
"I don't think you know that for sure."
She didn't. They stood there a few silent moments, as far apart as the room would allow, contemplating their own thoughts.
Don spoke again first, "Breakfast then?"
"Yah."
Zemma must have kept Riddick in bed, because the usual place to just hang around was the galley, and it was empty. There was, however, some light there. It was very dim, but enough to move around safely. Don dropped his lenses.
"Zemma must have argued him down."
"At least for this room."
The pair looked at each other. Jack thought she'd feel awkward; Don seemed only contemplative.
"We okay?" He asked her.
Jack cocked her head to the side, as if this angle would provide answers. Don scowled, and she laughed abruptly, before covering it with her hand. She saw his half a smile as he turned away, towards the cooking area.
"What can you cook?" He asked, his back still to her, as he opened the cooler and considered what was inside.
"Grilled cheese."
He looked over his shoulder at her questioningly.
"A sandwich." She moved a little closer to him and the prep area.
"What's on it?"
"Uh… cheese."
Don pulled bread and a block of cheese from the cooler. "Fry an egg too, and we'll call it breakfast."
"Me?"
Don sighed. "Can you fry an egg?" He sounded almost resigned to the negative.
"Only if you want the yellow part broken."
"For a sandwich you do…" He pulled out a small carton of actual eggs- not boxed, scrambled-egg colored liquid- and placed them next to the cheese.
"Well…okay then."
Zemma answered the knock on the door pad and was surprised to find a covered tray outside the door of the cabin she shared with Riddick. On it, two sandwiches, gooey with too much cheese and slightly burnt along the edges of the egg and the bread. It looked terrible.
It smelled delicious.
There was no one in the galley. The bridge was empty as well. Zemma flipped through the cameras available, not expecting to see anything, and not disappointed. She began turning on the comms one at a time and listening. At the cargo bay they used for sparring, she found Don and Jack doing just that.
"Morning Zem!" Jack called out, out of breath, when she spied the green light. "Fucker!" Sounded out immediately afterwards: Don getting in a cheap shot.
"Morning!" Zemma called back, smile playing across her face to hear everything normal. "Thank you for breakfast."
But by the sounds of it, both were too busy to respond.
The first night after the lights came on, Jack hadn't quite known what to do with herself. She should've curl up someplace safe and get some sleep before her shift… but after 30 hours in constant contact with Don… Jack felt lonely without him.
She stood outside his door.
He hadn't slept since she'd woken up in his arms, stayed with her every minute through her next shift. Never offered, but always responded by helping her when she managed to ask. When Don's shift started, and the lights had come back on, she'd just stayed on the bridge with him.
"Go to bed, kid."
"I'm okay."
He's shrugged and went on as if she weren't there, ordering Riddick around through the comms to check this and do that in preparation for landing with their contract cargo. The ship was already in contact with the planet, other cargoes were considered, bids made. Don seemed to want to argue with everything Riddick said. Jack had smirked at that. Curled up in the navigator's chair, she listened to them argue, and sometimes dozed.
Then it was Zemma's shift, and Jack just followed Don around as he made his final checks, and laid groundwork for the cannon that no one actually spoke of out loud in her presence. He talked as he went, sometimes to her about what he was doing, sometimes to the equipment when it was being stubborn. Jack felt stupid following him around like starved kitten… but she hadn't wanted to be alone.
When Zemma called all clear, and Don headed for his cabin, Jack just walked along with him. He paused outside his door and looked her in the face, kinda curiously.
"You gonna come in?" His voice was gruff but his face wasn't.
"No, uh…" Jack wasn't sure what she wanted.
He put a hand on her shoulder. "Go get some sleep, Jack." His words were softer. He didn't once call her Ta Min since they'd left the cabin. Jack only nodded as he turned and left her in the hallway.
She just stood there, feeling lonely.
She wanted her Deinen. She didn't understand it. Wanting a mother figure in her life had sucked her into the clutches of… She'd never wanted a father figure, not since Riddick had saved her… and left her.
She rapped on the door pad.
"Yah?"
Jack's head tipped against the wall just above the speaker she whispered into. "Deinen?" Her eyes were pressed closed with tension. He would just tell her to go to bed, again.
"Come in." The door swooshed open at his words.
"I…" Jack didn't know what to say. She stood in the dim corridor, staring into the darkened room.
"Come in, Ta Min, get some sleep."
Relief rushed over her. In the dark, away from prying eyes and ears, Jack curled up in the arms of a man who didn't ask for anything but her best; didn't demand anything except to improve herself. One arm around her waist, the other a pillow for her head, Jack felt safe for the first time in years in Don's chaste embrace, and slept.
Riddick swears he isn't reading this. Guess it doesn't matter if he is.
We're hours from the next planet stop. Not a moon base, but a dirt ball, in Riddick's words. He says there's no reason for me to leave the ship, if I don't want to.
The ship behind us isn't getting any closer, and there's no point creating a cannon that would just arouse suspicion…yet. Riddick hopes it will land so he can have a suitable hand-to-hand conversation with its occupant.
Jack seems better. She and Don are still going at it, but there seems to be a new element to it now. The day after the lights came on, Don started leaving traps for her…
Don came walking down a hallway that led to the open center of the ship. He seemed cheerful and he was humming; strange in itself. He dropped a broom in the middle of the walkway. He walked down ten feet or so and strung a wire across the hall at ankle level and poured water on both sides of it. He smiled at me and waved as he dropped a fighting knife, similar to the one I wear, about ten feet inside the open area. Then he walked up the closest ramp and vanished.
A minute later Jack came down the same hall. She looked suspicious when she noticed the broom. She approached slowly in a cat like stance, turning frequently to look behind her. When she got to the broom she snapped it off the end and carried the handle as a weapon. Very annoying, it was our only broom.
I worried that she wouldn't see the wet floor, and almost called out a warning, when she suddenly ran forward and leapt the water, and wire, in a single bound. She hit the ground rolling and popped to her feet, then struck each wall and the ceiling in a barrage of attacks with the broom handle until she was sure Don wasn't going to materialize.
She saw me, grinned, and walked forward slowly, taking time to look on both sides of the doorway as she entered the open area. She mouthed to me silently, "Where's Don?" Before I could answer, she noticed the knife, looked around again and approached it warily. She took it with a smug look and discarded the broom handle.
She had just started to say something, when Don launched himself from the ramp in a horrifying death from above attack. Poor Jack froze for a moment unable to believe her eyes. Tucked up into a ball, he struck her at an angle that knocked her back down the hallway. When she hit the water she slid into the wire that tangled around her. She came up cussing, still clutching the knife, and started toward Don with murder in her eyes. Don actually laughed as he retreated back up the ramps.
"'Scuse me, Zemma. It's gonna get nasty, now." Jack said between clenched teeth, eyes sparkling, looking feral and almost…happy.
My hand is cramping. Time to go see what Riddick is doing, and find out who survived the last round.
Jack's last few days onboard the frigate were happy. That alone should have told her the end was near. God, The Celestial Sadist, wasn't done playing with her life, and Hypatia wasn't ready to loosen her clutches.
They were due to make landing between Zemma and Riddick's shifts, which tickled Zemma, who wanted another chance to fly in the atmosphere she couldn't actually go walk around in. She and Riddick were thoroughly preoccupied with that one thing as they got closer to the planet, so they didn't notice anything out of the ordinary in their midst.
Meanwhile, Don never once gave any hint to their shipmates that Jack's role onboard had changed: at least in the dark and quiet of his cabin. They traded insults as well as blows, and seemed content in their mutual irritation of each other. Then, each night, Jack would slip into Don's room with a whispered word of affection, and he would hold her sleeping form until ship's morning, when she would slip out to have a sonic shower and change her clothes in another cabin. Knowing Zemma's preoccupation with snooping, he never called her Ta Min except in the privacy of his room. The two slept fully clothed, and contented with each other.
Until landfall.
Jack should have known better. Anyone who knew her at all would have gladly told her she would screw it up. She should have known better, but she simply didn't. In the dark, everything was all right. In his arms, she was safe and loved. She only wanted to thank him, to show him how much she loved him back…
She really didn't know any better. She certainly couldn't have foreseen the consequences. She was just so filled up with emotions she'd never felt before… without running away from them.
She didn't know Zemma would get the plague. She wouldn't have done what she did, if she had known that. The feelings she had seemed to extend right out of her to everyone on the frigate. She loved Zemma.
She didn't know Riddick would go mad with despair. She wouldn't have thought that possible, but even so, if she had known, she never would have done it. She loved Riddick, she always had.
She didn't know Don would find someone else to love. She never would have done it. She would have waited, maybe. Maybe if she had waited… She only wanted to show him how much she loved him.
She just didn't know any better.