Disclaimer: I do not own Pitch Black nor its characters. All those not recognized are probably of my own make. I am making no profit from this; it's purely for shits & giggles. The first words in italics are taken from the book, Pitch Black, by Frank Lauria. Some of the concepts and/or histories are also taken from the book. The song Damaged, by Plumb, will subtly fit to the flow of the story, just give it time. The following events are placed eighteen years after the movie events.

Fic Name: Damaged

Who: Riddick/Jack pairing, Imam might appear, other original chars.

When: 18 to 22 years (time lapses due to cryosleep time additions) after the events of Pitch Black

Synopsis: 18 years after the events of Pitch Black, Jack is 26 and living on New Mecca with Imam. Right after Riddick, Imam, and Jack got off T2, Riddick left both of them. Now, years later, Jack has discovered some deadly, classified information about the regeneration and relocation of some of the T2 creatures and must find Riddick to help destroy those plans. Riddick and Jack travel back to the desolate, arid planet with only three days until the new eclipse. Thus, with only limited time until the planetary eclipse, Riddick and Jack must destroy the plans for relocation of the creatures, survive the remaining numbers of creatures still on the planet, and also find a way off the planet before it's too late.

Damaged

By C.N. Sweatt

Damaged

Dreaming comes so easily,

Cause it's all that I've known.

True love is a fairy tale...

I'm damaged, so how would I know?

I'm scared, and I'm alone...

I'm ashamed and I need for you to know...

I didn't say all the things that I wanted to say,

And you can't take back what you have taken away.

Cause I feel you...

I feel you... near me...

Healing comes so painfully,

And it chills to the bone...

Will anyone get close to me?

I'm damaged, as I'm sure you know...

I'm scared, and I'm alone...

I'm ashamed and I need for you to know.

I didn't say all the things that I wanted to say,

And you can't take back what you have taken away.

Cause I feel you...

I feel you... near me...

There's nothing for my soul...

And into this fear....

Forgiveness for a man who is stronger...

I was just a little girl...

But I can't go back...

I didn't say all the things that I wanted to say,

And you can't take back what you have taken away.

Cause I feel you...

How I feel you near me...

Can't go back...

I must go on…

--Damaged, by Plumb

Chapter One, Dreams

There are no dreams in cryosleep.

            Nothing except the murky sludge of frozen time. Cold and gray, like dirty snow ebbing slowly into a sea of mud. A desolate place where the human soul is hostage, suspended between death and rebirth.

            The best of it, or perhaps the worst, is the fact that cryosleep leaves you set apart from the rest of humanity. Time moves on, humans die and humans are born, planets change, technology advances; life is passing and you're not there to witness it.

            Cryosleep keeps you at the same; the same memories, the same wants, the same needs. You are the same, yet everything has changed and gone.

***

            Even after spending more than half my life in cryosleep, I still can't shake the feeling of having left something behind. There's always this new fear, each time I enter the cryotube, that I'll lose something if I don't stay. Something I'll never be able to find again if I don't stop, turn around and go back.

            Technically, my paper age was already at 98 years, but after cryo-deduction I'm closer to twenty-six; healthy, young, and full of ambition. So, tally all that up and it would be around seventy-two years spent in cryosleep.

            I think if you were to ask me eighteen years ago, when I was thirteen and lost, "So, Jack, where do you see yourself ten years from now?" I would have replied that I wouldn't have seen myself period.

            That would have been my answer back on that hellish planet. T2 in the uncolonized Quinner system, as I had later been told was what it was called. I had honestly not believed I would survive it.

To this day, it's been avoided. I hear it's still uncolonized out there. Nameless, dangerous, and forbidden.

And those extra two and a half years in cryosleep after I left the planet with Riddick and Imam on our rescue ship couldn't help me escape the memory of it.

            Technically, it's been eighteen years since I was last there, last saw Riddick. I remember how much it hurt to know that he was gone, that he left of his own free will. For years after he left, I used to dream that he was out there somewhere, thinking of me, wishing he could come back. That he would come back and never leave me.

And then I'd wonder if those things are still out there, eerie calls searching out that desolate darkness for a new meal…searching for us, the ones who got away.

Perhaps they've killed each other off…

            But, no…that would be too convenient, wouldn't it? And life isn't easy like that. I've known that every since I ran away and left my parents on Scorpio One, one of the moons outside of the Old Earth System. I spent all the money I had planet hopping, trying to escape the looming presence of my parents. For sixty-six years I rested in cryosleep, traveling further and further away from Scorpio One on "back-road" shipping lanes and never came out the wiser for it.

            Truth be told, Taurus Three in the Tangiers System had been my last stop, the end of my runaway journey. Besides a few other planets (none as respectable as T3) it was probably the closest I could get to being on opposite sides of the universe from my parents. Not to mention, by the time I was on the last ship headed for Taurus Three, I figured they were dead and gone by then anyways, their bodies turned to dust while mine slept on in cryo.

            So, my traveling upon the Hunter-Gratzner headed for T3 was something of a relief to me. I was finally going to have a life and it would be mine to make.

            But as many things do, that last trip definitely did not go as I'd intended it to. There was the crash, the survival, the escape.

And during the escape of that cursed planet, I realized something I should have earlier. Despite all that time spent in cryosleep, years gone by and a life that should have already been lived instead of running away, I was still a child. A child who knew nothing more than what her dreams told her of.

            So, after we escaped the planet, I made plans. Plans that involved Riddick and Imam. I would live out my childhood in their care and when I was grown, Riddick and I would go off and have grand adventures, adventures far from the nightmares of my youth.

            But, as many a grown man or woman might tell you, the plans of the young are most often idealistic and half-formed.

            As were mine.

            Riddick left on the most convenient ship off-planet once the Gradish Mina Tyen, our rescue ship, dropped us on T3. There was a time when I used to tell myself that he left to avoid Company cronies, but I figure on a better theory nowadays. After all, when faced with the prospect of growing old and slow with an energetic little girl bounding after you with so much admiration, who wouldn't run?

            After Riddick had left, Imam offered for me to go with him to New Mecca. With nothing else left in my future, I agreed, and traveled the required cryo years needed to reach the planet of pink waters.

            I spent the next thirteen years there, comfortable but perhaps not content. Imam had only been on hajj, but with the boys gone, he had no reason to return home.

I finally allowed my hair to grow out to my waist, pleased with the look. It was most definitely different from the shaved-head look I had tried to impress Riddick with all those years ago. I'm also a natural blonde, though it was more pronounced from all my time in the New Meccan sun, not to mention I almost crispied myself many a times.

And because of the new concerns and health risks that were being increasingly brought up about blindness, Imam made me agree to get ES when I was fourteen to protect my eyes from the brightness of the planet's sun. And truthfully, I wasn't planning on going anywhere, so when the time came, he paid the money for the EyeScreens and I got them done. You can't tell what my original color is anymore. All you see is the uncanny glow of the neon blue screens integrated into my iris.

            It makes it really hard to sneak up on people in the dark.

            Actually, unless I remember to bring my night specs, I can't see anything in the dark. I'm completely blind, I'm not kidding you.

Lucky for me night on New Mecca last about six hours, huh?

And don't think I can't see the irony of the situation; it does remind me of Riddick's eye job, though my side-effects are almost the exact opposite from his.

            So, I spent more and more time swimming and helping Imam around the residence, since the glare didn't bother me anymore. I'm proud to say that, because of it, I'm a pretty in-shape person, though maybe a little too lean for my taste.

            I wish I could tell someone out there that Imam had done right by me, but frankly I just don't think there is anyone out there who cares. I lost my ignorance of life, well most of it anyways, and I've grown into the adult I should have been while crashed on that planet. Maybe then I could have helped save the rest of the survivors. Fry, Shazza, Paris, Zeke, the boys…maybe I could have stopped the inevitable.

            But inevitability came and I wasn't able to help them and they're gone.

            So, you have to understand, when I stumbled upon some classified information from the Newtonian Institute concerning the creatures from T2, there must have been something inside of me that wanted to give penance to those lost souls on the planet. Yet, I knew I had to act and quickly, before it was too late.

            It was time to go back to T2, but I knew I wouldn't be able to do what I needed done alone.

I tried once to convince Imam to go with me, but he would not. He told me he would never go back to that deadly planet again and begged me not to go myself. I told him the consequences of what would happen if I didn't and he did not ask me to not go again. I also asked him only once, for I respected his decision.

I had been there also. I knew what it was like.

Therefore, if Imam would not go with me, there was only one other who knew how to handle those things on T2.

Riddick.

I found out that he had been traveling to Taurus Five under the name of William J. Johns. After all, Johns was dead, and Riddick had assumed the identity. Though, I do admit I was incredibly surprised he had kept it for so long. I had heard Company lawmen had been after him for a while…

Well, no matter the reason, it had worked in my favor quite well. After bidding farewell to Imam, I booked transit on a small commercial ship headed for T5 that supposedly guaranteed only a year in cryo to reach the huge planet.

I was careful in my planning. If everything went right, I would reach the port that he was due to arrive at a day earlier than the vessel actually did. If I could convince him, I already had two passenger spaces booked on the Neidet Dawne that was headed to T2. And trust me, I had spent almost all of my money on that flight, considering no Captain (none in his right mind, anyhow) wanted to enter the Quinner System, much less take the lane near T2.

I was pretty much assuring myself that I could get him to agree, so I wasn't worried. He wouldn't let me go there alone.

And with all those plans in mind, into cryo I went and an undefined amount of time later, I reached T5.