Chapter 22 - Patching Things Up
Orion Station fast becoming a memory behind them, Riddick leaned back in the pilot's seat and closed his eyes. "Shit, Jack," he said, rubbing his hands over his face, feeling weary and worried and like he'd just sentenced Jack to a long, slow death, "do you know what you've done?"
*I killed a man.* Unable to speak the words, Jack just nodded. Her hands were shaking; she couldn't get them to stop so she folded them, sticking them between her knees. That's when she realized that her whole body was shaking. "I couldn't let him take you away." The thought of him being chained like some wild animal, the idea of him never being free again, caused her heart to ache. "He probably would have killed you." *And I would have died,* she added silently.
"I can take care of myself, Jack. I've been doing it for a lotta years now. I didn't need your help." *Thanks anyway.* He sighed, rubbing a hand over his head. He really should be nicer to her, she did just save his ass. Even if he hadn't really needed the help, she didn't know that. But with that one action she'd just set herself up for a lot of bad shit. "You just killed a man in full view of about a thousand fucking video cameras," he wanted her to understand the weight of what she'd done, she'd just killed a man, there was no coming back from that. "You can't go home now, Jack. You understand that? You can never go home again. Is that what you wanted?"
She looked at him, quiet desperation on her face. "The only home I need is with you."
She meant every word of it, and he knew it. That was the hell of it. "Well, I guess I'm stuck with you now." He hadn't meant the words to sound as harsh as they did. He saw her flinch and immediately wished he could take them back, but he couldn't. *Shit!* As he looked at her, he could see she was white as a sheet, she was shaking and sweating. *Damnit.* He definitely didn't need her to go into shock. "You look like shit. C'mon." Unbuckling the safety belts, he stood up and hit the release on Jack's safety harness. Pulling her up out of the co-pilot's seat, he led her out of the cockpit, holding his arm around her just in case her legs gave out before he could get her back to his cabin. She needed to lay down, put her feet up, get warm.
Leaning gratefully into the warmth of his body, Jack let Riddick lead her away. He was angry with her, she knew that, but his arm around her still felt good. She was shaking uncontrollably now, unable to stop the tremors wracking her body. "I'm cold."
"I know. I think you might be going into shock, you need to get warmed up." His hand brushed against her side and she whimpered, falling against him. Pulling his hand away, he looked down at it and realized it was covered with blood. Jack's blood. "Fuck! You've been hit. Why didn't you tell me you'd been shot?" Any thought of being angry with her slipped instantly away. Lifting her up, he carried her the rest of the way to his cabin, depositing her lightly on the wide bunk and going in search of the first aid kit, hoping that the God that had abandoned him so long ago loved Jack as much as he did. The thought stopped him in mid-stride. *Where the fuck did that come from?* Did he really love Jack? He had to laugh at the thought, a hard, mirthless sound. He didn't even remember what love felt like, how the hell was he supposed to know if he loved Jack? It was probably just a reaction to her being shot but he couldn't worry about that right now, he needed to get Jack patched up. Making himself focus on the task at hand, he told himself he'd think about it later.
Looking down as if she was in a daze, Jack pulled the shirt away from her side seeing the blood darkening the fabric. "He shot me, Carson shot me," she said, almost disbelieving her own voice. She had felt something hit her, she remembered now, but there was only a moment of pain before the numbness returned. Everything had become so numb after she had pulled that trigger and saw Michael Gordon's brains splatter out against the pale gray wall. The memory of the sticky red splashed against the institutional gray made her stomach roll. Looking up as Riddick came back into the room, she put a hand to her mouth, not caring that it was covered with her own blood. "I think I'm going to be sick."
Grabbing the trash can, he sat down on the bunk next to her, holding her hair back as she emptied the meager contents of her stomach into the can. "Here," he sat the can to the side and handed her a bottle of water. "Drink some of this then lay down so I can get a look at your side." His voice was harsh, even to his own ears.
Obeying him without a question, Jack took a small drink before handing the bottle back. Riddick sat the bottle aside and laid her back, taking the pillows from the head of the bed and using them to prop up her feet. She was still shivering, so he pulled the bed's single blanket up over her, leaving only her side exposed. That was really the only blanket on the ship so after he got her fixed up, he'd raise the room's ambient temp a bit. Taking scissors out of the kit, he cut away the bloody shirt. Damn, there was a lot of blood. Adrenaline pumped through him. He knew what fear felt like, and this was it.
The thought of Jack dying scared the hell out of him, and that shocked him. "Don't you dare die on me, Jack," he said under his breath. *What if it's something I can't patch up?* he asked himself, but as soon as he thought it he knew the answer. If he had to, he'd take her back to Orion Station and turn himself in before he let her die. He wondered, absently, if he turned himself in if he could work some sort of a deal to keep Jack out of any trouble. *What happened to looking out for number one?* he asked himself acidly, but without even realizing it his priorities had changed.
Jack licked her dry lips, closing her eyes against another wave of nausea she pulled the blanket up under her chin, wishing it was a bit softer. "I don't intend to die, thank you very much."
"You just keep thinking that way," he said quietly as he pulled the material away from her side. There was plenty of sterile gauze and saline solution in the kit, along with just about everything he needed to do everything short of surgery, but he wasn't prepared to go quite that far. It wasn't the first time he'd had to patch someone up, he'd been trained as a medic in the Rangers and God knew he'd had to patch himself up enough, but this was the first time the patient was someone he actually cared about.
Using the gauze and saline to clean the area around the wound, he let out a relieved breath when he saw that it was just a flesh wound. A nasty flesh wound, but at least there was very little chance the bullet had passed through anything vital. There was, however entry and exit wounds that would need to be stitched up. He might be able to do it, but he'd much rather a real doctor had a look at her first. His mind quickly calculated that they were just three days jump from the Areiadne system and the only person in the galaxy that he trusted as much as Jack and Imam. As soon as he got done cleaning her up, he'd set the coordinates for the detour. Without even realizing it, his voice had become softer, more gentle. "Ok, it looks like a good clean wound, but I'm going to have to patch you up a little until I can get you to a doctor. Until I'm sure you're not going into shock I can't give you anything for the pain, you understand? I'm going to numb the area while I finish cleaning and packing the wound, but this is going to hurt like hell once it wears off."
Jack looked up at him, her dark green eyes trusting if a little scared. He might be mad at her, but she knew he would take care of her. She could hear his concern for her in his voice and offered him a shaky smile, halfway wondering if he was being so nice to her because he thought she was going to die. "Don't sugar coat it on my account."
Giving her what he hoped was a reassuring smile, he pulled out a small hypodermic with a pre-measured dose of a broad spectrum anti-biotic. Pulling down the waistband of her pants, he rubbed her hip with an alcohol pad. "This is going to sting, some broad spectrum anti-biotics."
She winced when she felt the needle, gritting her teeth as he depressed the plunger. "I'm not even going to ask why you have that," she joked, immediately wishing she hadn't laughed as pain flared in her side.
He chuckled low in his chest. "You must not feel too bad if you're still being a smart ass. For your information it's standard equipment in a first aid kit." Spraying the wound with an anesthetic mist, he was glad to see her relax a bit. "Better?"
Closing her eyes, she nodded. "Yeah." She wasn't shivering so much and the warmth was starting to come back into her body, but so was the pain.
"Ok, you tell me if I hurt you, and I'll spray it again." He flushed the wound with more of the saline, hoping that there wasn't anything lodged in it that could start an infection. He could probably have gone probing, but that might just hurt her worse. He looked up at her as he cleaned her up and put dressings on the wounds. "You still doing ok?"
She nodded again. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry?" Setting everything aside, he scooted a chair up to the head of the bunk. Taking her hand in his, he used his other hand to smooth hair back from her forehead. She felt clammy, not a good sign. "What do you have to be sorry about?"
"Everything." Tears started rolling down her face. "I'm sorry I killed a man, I'm sorry you were captured, I'm sorry that I'm being such a fucking baby right now." She tried to laugh, but it came out as a cough that made her side feel like someone had set it on fire. Grimacing against the pain, she looked back up at him. "It's my fault Carson knew who you were in the first place, I didn't tell him but he found some things, personal things that I'd thought were hidden and safe." She suddenly felt incredibly foolish to have kept the diary and the box in the first place. "Well, I might as well have been the one that turned you in." Angry with herself for crying, she brushed at her face with her free hand.
He squeezed her hand. "No, you wouldn't ever do anything like that. I know that." *Even if I was an asshole and accused you before.*
"That's not what you said before," there was hurt in her voice.
He brought her hand up to his lips, kissing the knuckles. "I didn't really believe that, Jack. I was just angry. I'm sorry I accused you, it was unfair." He smiled ruefully at her. "But you knew up-front that I was an asshole."
"Yeah, but I love you anyway." She suddenly felt very tired, but her body hurt so much she wasn't sure she could sleep. "Would it be ok if I tried to sleep for a little while?"
He thought about it for a moment, she didn't seem to be going into shock, maybe he should go ahead and give her some pain meds so she could get some rest. It was a three day trip to Areiadne and it'd probably be easier on her if she could sleep. "Sure, Kid." He loaded a hypo with some anesthephine and, swabbing her hip, gave her half an ampoule. It wasn't really enough to take away all the pain, but it would help her sleep without depressing her bodily functions. Giving it intramuscularly rather than intravenously would keep it from hitting her system too quickly too. "There you go. That should take effect soon." Walking over to the cabinet where he stored his clothes, he pulled out a long sleeved, thermal shirt. Moving back to the bed, he pulled back the cover a bit. "Do you think you can sit up if I help you?"
Whatever Riddick had given her must be working because she was starting to feel a bit fuzzy, but at least the pain was down to a dull ache. "Sure." Taking his hand, she sat on the side of the bed, her legs dangling over the edge as he stripped off her jacket and tossed it onto the chair. He carefully pulled her ruined t-shirt up and off her body and threw it onto the floor. A blush crept into her cheeks as she remembered doing something very similar just two days ago, but this time there was nothing sexual in the action, oddly enough that made it all the more embarrassing. Shaking out the shirt he'd retrieved from the cabinet, he pulled it on over her head. She dutifully held her arms up, though the action hurt like hell, and let him dress her like a rag doll. As he was settling the too large shirt onto her small frame she noticed a large patch of drying blood staining the once white sheets. "I'm sorry I bled all over your sheets."
Riddick smiled as he took one of the pillows and put it under her head as he lay her back on the bed. From the look on her face he could tell the anesthephine was starting to work. "That's ok. Believe it or not I do actually have more than one set." Pulling off her boots, he tucked her under the cover before moving to the temp controls and setting the ambient temperature up a couple of degrees. "I'm not going to sweat over a couple of sheets." *I'm just glad you're not going to die on me.*
Jack saw him start to leave the room and panicked, what if she went to sleep and never woke up again? What if Riddick wasn't telling her the whole truth? What if this was the last time she ever got to see him. "NO! Don't leave me!"
"What's the matter?" Riddick frowned at her, concern etched on his face.
"Just don't leave until I fall asleep, ok?" Her brain was getting fuzzy and she didn't know how to put her fear into words. "I just don't want to be alone."
"Ok." The Persephone could autopilot herself through just about anything, Riddick's being on the flight deck was really more just him wanting to be there. He could spare a few minutes until Jack fell asleep. Sitting back in the chair beside the bed, he smiled as she held her hand out to him again and took it without hesitation. "I just hope you don't want a bedtime story or anything because I suck at those," he joked.
*What I'd really like is for you to climb under the cover with me and keep me warm.* He was being so nice to her, she didn't want to push her luck, though, so she'd settle for him holding her hand. "You must like me at least a little bit, Riddick. Otherwise, you wouldn't take such good care of me." She didn't realize she'd spoken the words aloud.
Riddick watched in silence until her breathing told him she'd fallen asleep. He sat there for a while after that, just watching her, reassuring himself that she was going to be ok. It felt strange to care so much about someone. He'd always cared about her, he knew that, but this was something different. Something deeper and scarier that he hadn't expected to feel again, hadn't wanted to. "Yeah, Jack. I like you a little."
Orion Station fast becoming a memory behind them, Riddick leaned back in the pilot's seat and closed his eyes. "Shit, Jack," he said, rubbing his hands over his face, feeling weary and worried and like he'd just sentenced Jack to a long, slow death, "do you know what you've done?"
*I killed a man.* Unable to speak the words, Jack just nodded. Her hands were shaking; she couldn't get them to stop so she folded them, sticking them between her knees. That's when she realized that her whole body was shaking. "I couldn't let him take you away." The thought of him being chained like some wild animal, the idea of him never being free again, caused her heart to ache. "He probably would have killed you." *And I would have died,* she added silently.
"I can take care of myself, Jack. I've been doing it for a lotta years now. I didn't need your help." *Thanks anyway.* He sighed, rubbing a hand over his head. He really should be nicer to her, she did just save his ass. Even if he hadn't really needed the help, she didn't know that. But with that one action she'd just set herself up for a lot of bad shit. "You just killed a man in full view of about a thousand fucking video cameras," he wanted her to understand the weight of what she'd done, she'd just killed a man, there was no coming back from that. "You can't go home now, Jack. You understand that? You can never go home again. Is that what you wanted?"
She looked at him, quiet desperation on her face. "The only home I need is with you."
She meant every word of it, and he knew it. That was the hell of it. "Well, I guess I'm stuck with you now." He hadn't meant the words to sound as harsh as they did. He saw her flinch and immediately wished he could take them back, but he couldn't. *Shit!* As he looked at her, he could see she was white as a sheet, she was shaking and sweating. *Damnit.* He definitely didn't need her to go into shock. "You look like shit. C'mon." Unbuckling the safety belts, he stood up and hit the release on Jack's safety harness. Pulling her up out of the co-pilot's seat, he led her out of the cockpit, holding his arm around her just in case her legs gave out before he could get her back to his cabin. She needed to lay down, put her feet up, get warm.
Leaning gratefully into the warmth of his body, Jack let Riddick lead her away. He was angry with her, she knew that, but his arm around her still felt good. She was shaking uncontrollably now, unable to stop the tremors wracking her body. "I'm cold."
"I know. I think you might be going into shock, you need to get warmed up." His hand brushed against her side and she whimpered, falling against him. Pulling his hand away, he looked down at it and realized it was covered with blood. Jack's blood. "Fuck! You've been hit. Why didn't you tell me you'd been shot?" Any thought of being angry with her slipped instantly away. Lifting her up, he carried her the rest of the way to his cabin, depositing her lightly on the wide bunk and going in search of the first aid kit, hoping that the God that had abandoned him so long ago loved Jack as much as he did. The thought stopped him in mid-stride. *Where the fuck did that come from?* Did he really love Jack? He had to laugh at the thought, a hard, mirthless sound. He didn't even remember what love felt like, how the hell was he supposed to know if he loved Jack? It was probably just a reaction to her being shot but he couldn't worry about that right now, he needed to get Jack patched up. Making himself focus on the task at hand, he told himself he'd think about it later.
Looking down as if she was in a daze, Jack pulled the shirt away from her side seeing the blood darkening the fabric. "He shot me, Carson shot me," she said, almost disbelieving her own voice. She had felt something hit her, she remembered now, but there was only a moment of pain before the numbness returned. Everything had become so numb after she had pulled that trigger and saw Michael Gordon's brains splatter out against the pale gray wall. The memory of the sticky red splashed against the institutional gray made her stomach roll. Looking up as Riddick came back into the room, she put a hand to her mouth, not caring that it was covered with her own blood. "I think I'm going to be sick."
Grabbing the trash can, he sat down on the bunk next to her, holding her hair back as she emptied the meager contents of her stomach into the can. "Here," he sat the can to the side and handed her a bottle of water. "Drink some of this then lay down so I can get a look at your side." His voice was harsh, even to his own ears.
Obeying him without a question, Jack took a small drink before handing the bottle back. Riddick sat the bottle aside and laid her back, taking the pillows from the head of the bed and using them to prop up her feet. She was still shivering, so he pulled the bed's single blanket up over her, leaving only her side exposed. That was really the only blanket on the ship so after he got her fixed up, he'd raise the room's ambient temp a bit. Taking scissors out of the kit, he cut away the bloody shirt. Damn, there was a lot of blood. Adrenaline pumped through him. He knew what fear felt like, and this was it.
The thought of Jack dying scared the hell out of him, and that shocked him. "Don't you dare die on me, Jack," he said under his breath. *What if it's something I can't patch up?* he asked himself, but as soon as he thought it he knew the answer. If he had to, he'd take her back to Orion Station and turn himself in before he let her die. He wondered, absently, if he turned himself in if he could work some sort of a deal to keep Jack out of any trouble. *What happened to looking out for number one?* he asked himself acidly, but without even realizing it his priorities had changed.
Jack licked her dry lips, closing her eyes against another wave of nausea she pulled the blanket up under her chin, wishing it was a bit softer. "I don't intend to die, thank you very much."
"You just keep thinking that way," he said quietly as he pulled the material away from her side. There was plenty of sterile gauze and saline solution in the kit, along with just about everything he needed to do everything short of surgery, but he wasn't prepared to go quite that far. It wasn't the first time he'd had to patch someone up, he'd been trained as a medic in the Rangers and God knew he'd had to patch himself up enough, but this was the first time the patient was someone he actually cared about.
Using the gauze and saline to clean the area around the wound, he let out a relieved breath when he saw that it was just a flesh wound. A nasty flesh wound, but at least there was very little chance the bullet had passed through anything vital. There was, however entry and exit wounds that would need to be stitched up. He might be able to do it, but he'd much rather a real doctor had a look at her first. His mind quickly calculated that they were just three days jump from the Areiadne system and the only person in the galaxy that he trusted as much as Jack and Imam. As soon as he got done cleaning her up, he'd set the coordinates for the detour. Without even realizing it, his voice had become softer, more gentle. "Ok, it looks like a good clean wound, but I'm going to have to patch you up a little until I can get you to a doctor. Until I'm sure you're not going into shock I can't give you anything for the pain, you understand? I'm going to numb the area while I finish cleaning and packing the wound, but this is going to hurt like hell once it wears off."
Jack looked up at him, her dark green eyes trusting if a little scared. He might be mad at her, but she knew he would take care of her. She could hear his concern for her in his voice and offered him a shaky smile, halfway wondering if he was being so nice to her because he thought she was going to die. "Don't sugar coat it on my account."
Giving her what he hoped was a reassuring smile, he pulled out a small hypodermic with a pre-measured dose of a broad spectrum anti-biotic. Pulling down the waistband of her pants, he rubbed her hip with an alcohol pad. "This is going to sting, some broad spectrum anti-biotics."
She winced when she felt the needle, gritting her teeth as he depressed the plunger. "I'm not even going to ask why you have that," she joked, immediately wishing she hadn't laughed as pain flared in her side.
He chuckled low in his chest. "You must not feel too bad if you're still being a smart ass. For your information it's standard equipment in a first aid kit." Spraying the wound with an anesthetic mist, he was glad to see her relax a bit. "Better?"
Closing her eyes, she nodded. "Yeah." She wasn't shivering so much and the warmth was starting to come back into her body, but so was the pain.
"Ok, you tell me if I hurt you, and I'll spray it again." He flushed the wound with more of the saline, hoping that there wasn't anything lodged in it that could start an infection. He could probably have gone probing, but that might just hurt her worse. He looked up at her as he cleaned her up and put dressings on the wounds. "You still doing ok?"
She nodded again. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry?" Setting everything aside, he scooted a chair up to the head of the bunk. Taking her hand in his, he used his other hand to smooth hair back from her forehead. She felt clammy, not a good sign. "What do you have to be sorry about?"
"Everything." Tears started rolling down her face. "I'm sorry I killed a man, I'm sorry you were captured, I'm sorry that I'm being such a fucking baby right now." She tried to laugh, but it came out as a cough that made her side feel like someone had set it on fire. Grimacing against the pain, she looked back up at him. "It's my fault Carson knew who you were in the first place, I didn't tell him but he found some things, personal things that I'd thought were hidden and safe." She suddenly felt incredibly foolish to have kept the diary and the box in the first place. "Well, I might as well have been the one that turned you in." Angry with herself for crying, she brushed at her face with her free hand.
He squeezed her hand. "No, you wouldn't ever do anything like that. I know that." *Even if I was an asshole and accused you before.*
"That's not what you said before," there was hurt in her voice.
He brought her hand up to his lips, kissing the knuckles. "I didn't really believe that, Jack. I was just angry. I'm sorry I accused you, it was unfair." He smiled ruefully at her. "But you knew up-front that I was an asshole."
"Yeah, but I love you anyway." She suddenly felt very tired, but her body hurt so much she wasn't sure she could sleep. "Would it be ok if I tried to sleep for a little while?"
He thought about it for a moment, she didn't seem to be going into shock, maybe he should go ahead and give her some pain meds so she could get some rest. It was a three day trip to Areiadne and it'd probably be easier on her if she could sleep. "Sure, Kid." He loaded a hypo with some anesthephine and, swabbing her hip, gave her half an ampoule. It wasn't really enough to take away all the pain, but it would help her sleep without depressing her bodily functions. Giving it intramuscularly rather than intravenously would keep it from hitting her system too quickly too. "There you go. That should take effect soon." Walking over to the cabinet where he stored his clothes, he pulled out a long sleeved, thermal shirt. Moving back to the bed, he pulled back the cover a bit. "Do you think you can sit up if I help you?"
Whatever Riddick had given her must be working because she was starting to feel a bit fuzzy, but at least the pain was down to a dull ache. "Sure." Taking his hand, she sat on the side of the bed, her legs dangling over the edge as he stripped off her jacket and tossed it onto the chair. He carefully pulled her ruined t-shirt up and off her body and threw it onto the floor. A blush crept into her cheeks as she remembered doing something very similar just two days ago, but this time there was nothing sexual in the action, oddly enough that made it all the more embarrassing. Shaking out the shirt he'd retrieved from the cabinet, he pulled it on over her head. She dutifully held her arms up, though the action hurt like hell, and let him dress her like a rag doll. As he was settling the too large shirt onto her small frame she noticed a large patch of drying blood staining the once white sheets. "I'm sorry I bled all over your sheets."
Riddick smiled as he took one of the pillows and put it under her head as he lay her back on the bed. From the look on her face he could tell the anesthephine was starting to work. "That's ok. Believe it or not I do actually have more than one set." Pulling off her boots, he tucked her under the cover before moving to the temp controls and setting the ambient temperature up a couple of degrees. "I'm not going to sweat over a couple of sheets." *I'm just glad you're not going to die on me.*
Jack saw him start to leave the room and panicked, what if she went to sleep and never woke up again? What if Riddick wasn't telling her the whole truth? What if this was the last time she ever got to see him. "NO! Don't leave me!"
"What's the matter?" Riddick frowned at her, concern etched on his face.
"Just don't leave until I fall asleep, ok?" Her brain was getting fuzzy and she didn't know how to put her fear into words. "I just don't want to be alone."
"Ok." The Persephone could autopilot herself through just about anything, Riddick's being on the flight deck was really more just him wanting to be there. He could spare a few minutes until Jack fell asleep. Sitting back in the chair beside the bed, he smiled as she held her hand out to him again and took it without hesitation. "I just hope you don't want a bedtime story or anything because I suck at those," he joked.
*What I'd really like is for you to climb under the cover with me and keep me warm.* He was being so nice to her, she didn't want to push her luck, though, so she'd settle for him holding her hand. "You must like me at least a little bit, Riddick. Otherwise, you wouldn't take such good care of me." She didn't realize she'd spoken the words aloud.
Riddick watched in silence until her breathing told him she'd fallen asleep. He sat there for a while after that, just watching her, reassuring himself that she was going to be ok. It felt strange to care so much about someone. He'd always cared about her, he knew that, but this was something different. Something deeper and scarier that he hadn't expected to feel again, hadn't wanted to. "Yeah, Jack. I like you a little."