Chapter Four

"Anna, bagel. Bagel with cream cheese, yeah I remembered that you like the cream and the cheese and the cheesy cream." She heard Riddick say and she smiled in spite of herself. She opened her eyes to see Riddick waving a bagel under her nose, she took it and pulled it apart licking the cream cheese off her thumb.

"Thanks." She said and sat up ripping a piece off of it and putting it in her mouth, savoring the taste of the cream cheese. "So what's with this? The last time I was awake you were hitting me, now you're giving me a bagel?" she gained some satisfaction when he winced at the mention of the beating he gave her.

"I feel bad about it, if I had known it was you I wouldn't have hit you."

"Apology accepted." She said and chewed another piece of bagel. "What no coffee?"

"Don't push it." He said pointing a finger at her and she smiled while chewing. "You're a mercenary Anna."

"And you're a mass murderer."

"Why?"

"Because you killed people."

"No, why did you become a merc?"

"To find you, and to survive."

"Why to find me?"

"You were the best and greatest friend I ever had. After you left, my life seemed cold and empty, so I became a merc to try to fill that void. I thought that the chase might help me feel, and it did for a little while anyways. I even got myself a boyfriend, but it didn't help." Anna said and finished her bagel in silence.

"What's his name?"

"Whose?"

"The boyfriends."

"Evan Jacobs, but I just call him Jacobs." She said and he snorted.

"Keeping it military?" he asked and she smiled at him.

"Something like that. So what happens now?"

"What do you mean?"

"Was that my last meal? Are you going to kill me?" she asked drawing her knees to her chest.

"Why would you ask that?"

"You gained a reputation of being a merc killer Riddick. And I'm a merc."

"Anna, I could never kill you." Riddick said sitting on the bed. She put her forehead on his shoulder and he hesitated before putting an arm around hers. They sat there in the silence until he tilted up her chin and looked at her. The cut on her cheek was red and angry looking and her eyes were slightly dead, he ran his fingers through her now shorn hair and a flicker of life appeared in her eyes. Riddick ran his hand to the back of her head, to her neck and he ran a finger down her spine making her shudder. He felt her put her arms around his waist and he hugged her, pressing her into his chest.

"I missed you so much Richard." Anna said into his neck and he ran his hand up and down her back.

"I missed you too Anna." He said stopping his hand on her waist, her shirt had hitched up a little and when his fingers brushed against the bare skin of her hip it felt as if an electric bolt had run through him, fusing his fingers to her skin. He ran them back and forth and she shivered against him, goosebumps rising along her skin.

"Richard why did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Kill Derek." She said indicating to the foster brother that Riddick killed twenty years ago.

"He was going to bring a gun to school and open fire, I couldn't talk him out of it, and to me the only logical course of action was to kill him before he killed many others, maybe even you." Riddick said and she looked at him, unexpressed emotion clouding her eyes. "I cared a lot about you Anna. Just the thought of you dying, I had never felt such fear in my entire life."

"Richard..." she said and put her face back into his neck. He ran his hand through her shorn hair over and over again while he held her. "I hated you so much for killing him, for leaving me. I wasn't even allowed to see you in prison. And by the time I was old enough, you had escaped from that prison and were somewhere. I thought that I would never see you again for as long as I lived. Every once in a while I would see a news report about you on the T.V and my heart would just skip a beat, I don't even think I breathed. But you're here, and you're real, just please don't leave me again, I barely survived the first time."

"I'm not going anywhere, not now that I found you, even though technically you found me."

"You know what? This is it; I'm through being a merc I'll get these blasted tattoos removed as soon as possible. I'm through being Collector, her life sucked anyways."

"What about Jacobs? He won't understand why one of the best mercenaries in the business decided to stick around the most wanted man in the universe." Riddick said and she looked him.

"How do you know I'm one of the best?" Anna asked and he shrugged smiling slightly.

"I hear things, that and the fact that I did some research on you, Anna VanBuskirk." Riddick said and she smiled slightly at him. He could see fatigue in her eyes so he laid her down gently. "Go back to sleep Anna, I'll be here when you wake up." she nodded yawning widely and her eyes fluttered closed. He lay next to her and she took his hand in her own. Just like when they were kids, and up until Riddick 'went away' when they were 16, they held hands, their finger laced together. They fell asleep like that, comforted in each other's presence.