Chapter 4

Disclaimer – I own nout, can I return to the fantasy now?

AN – Okay, here goes the nasties…

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"Not really," I refuse to turn my eyes away from him, a trick he taught me himself. Drive the message home better if you can believe it and look into someone elses eye. But for no other reason should you make eye contact with your enemy, and not even with your friends, because you shouldn't have any.

Doesn't mean he doesn't though.

He looked me in the eye once while he was sad...on the skiff leaving T2, when I asked what to tell them about Riddick.

Tell them Riddick's dead, he told me, and he turned to look me, dead in the eye. I died somewhere on that planet.

In that moment, that split second, I knew it to be true. I had seen his eyes before then, studied them, even, but then, something was…different. The murderous glint I'd seen when he replied "Which half?" to Imams enquiry of "Where's Johns?" had turned into the same soft warmth I'd seen when his face appeared in the cave entrance.

She did it. I know she did. Carolyn Fry did what the rest of the universe had failed to do.

She had stopped Richard B. Riddick...escaped convict...murderer. She changed him.

Riddick was a man. Just a man. She knew that.

And in that moment, I knew it too.

And I never forgot.

"Shall we get out of the cold?" His voice is softer now, gentle. Like it was during those nights on the skiff.

I nod, and we head back towards the cave together.

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Middle of the night, back in the skiff. Jack's sleepin' in her old bed, and her old nightmares. Or some new ones, I ain't sure. She's not movin' or makin' a sound, but I know she's dreamin'. She'll hold her breath a minute or two, then gasp for air, her face'll change sometimes, her arm or leg'll twitch. She's dreaming of something new, I'm pretty sure of it. Before, the dreams were of that hell-bitch...what was her name? The Merc who insisted I was an artist, wanted to flash freeze me for her own collection. She would have settled for killing me, though. She couldn't have me, so she'd kill me. Hell, I can understand that.

When the kid dreams of her, her hands clench, her finger flexes against an imaginary gun and its' imaginary trigger.

I don't know whether I should wake her up or not. On the skiff heading to New Mecca, I never did. She woke on her own. Then again, the dreams are a little different now.

Would I want someone to wake me up? Fuck no. But then, I ain't her. I'd rather have the nightmare than the awkward part when someone wakes you up and neither of you know what to do or to say. But the kid used to want me around when she woke up. I watched her a couple of times when she woke up alone and she thought I was asleep. I used to be able to watch her, even when she was watching me. Even when I couldn't see her, I'd feel the weight of her stare and know she was watching me. I'd hear her breath hitching and I knew she was crying. The nights I got up and went to her were better. There were no tears, just sad silence. A strange kind of comfort...not comfort exactly. Comfort is something a soft bed and warm pillows give you. Strength? I was her weapon from the nightmares, she told me once. I suppose that's the same thing. I gave her the strength to not be afraid of them.

Euck. What the hell does that sound like? Like I'm goin' soft or something.

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Four Rykangolls surrounded a small child, a shaking girl with her hands tied together and her legs bound at the ankles and knees, short, fluffy hair spiked up here from fear, plastered down there by sweat. Eyes wide and mouth tiny, she waits. She knows what's coming.

"I new one," one of the...creatures...grunted.

"A child..." his companion added, licking his lips.

Number three slipped behind the girl, and pushed her forwards hard with the toe of his hobbed boot. She cried out as she falls onto her face, and the small group laughed.

"A screamer!" One of them calls out gleefully. "We got us a screamer!"

One of them approached the girl just as she was getting back up onto her feet, a cruelly carved knife glittering in his hand.

"Let's see if we can get our money's worth out of this one."

Jack screamed.

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I knew it would happen in its' own sweet time. The kid bolts upright in her bed, a cry makin its' way up, but not out. She bit it back at the last minute. I wait until after she's ripped her shiv out from under her pillow and looked around before I try to make a move. Last thing I want is to get attacked.

I try talkin' to her, but she doesn't respond to her name.

I swing my legs off of my bed and take a few steps towards her.

"Jack?"

"No," she replies. I'm about to ask what the hell she's on about, when she continues. "Jack died a long time ago. She was weak...she couldn't cut it. I'd have died if it was left to her."

Shit.

Shitshitshitshitshit.

I know what happened to her. I know what could 'kill' a girl like her…hell, it'd kill anyone. Everyone who is the way me and her are are that way for a reason. Each and every one of us was tortured out of our minds in our own ways. I know what she means, that Jack died, because I did it once too. The person you are can't keep on being that person in the life they've been dealt. They have to change, fast and radically, or they will die. It's that simply. And it happened to Jack.

What the hell do I say to that?

"I'm sorry."

She looks at me with a sad smile.

"For what?"

Where the fuck do I start? Sorry for leaving, sorry for not taking you with me, sorry for not tellin' you where I was goin' so you could find me if you needed to, sorry for not sayin' goodbye...sorry for it all.

I shrug.

"Just sounded like the right thing to say."

I sit down beside her.

"What was the dream about?" I ask her. I know she won't tell me, but I ask her anyway.

"Nothing," she replies. Just as I knew she would.

"You should tell me, you know." I try again. "It's not good to keep things like that bottled up." Well, it's true. It's just that I never really paid much attention to that particular pearl of wisdom.

"Why the hell do you care?" She snaps. "I though you were one of those big bad-ass show-no-weakness-shed-no-tears kinda guys."

"I am. But that doesn't mean you gotta be."

Now ain't that just the dumbest thing I could've said? If there's anything'll make her want to be like it, it's me tellin' her that I'm like that.

"I can be."

Told ya.

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"Jack..." I hate that name. It's what I was, what I didn't want to be. I'm not her anymore, I'm new. I know who I am...

"No!"

I know, I shouldn't have yelled at him, but seriously, I'm tryin to make a point here.

"What, then?" He's tryin. Stayin' calm as you like. I thought he would have shivved me by now. "What do you want me to call you?"

Shit. I never did think of that.

"Kyra," I tell him. A girl I knew when I was younger. I always liked that name.

"Kyra then. Let me tell you a story." He faces dead ahead, staring into space, and begins. "Once upon a time, there was this kid. He never knew his parents; he never even knew his home world. He was grabbed off of it by a nut-case woman when he was a baby. When he was twelve, he went to this foster home. This woman. She already had one foster kid, a daughter...Brenna." He stops there, just for a moment. Anyone else probably wouldn't have noticed it...or the way his jaw tightened when he said her name. "The kids got close. Then a few months later, the woman got a boyfriend...Richard. The boyfriend was all right to begin with. To begin with. He started beatin' on the kids. Girl the worst. But the boy...he got beat nearly to death a half dozen times." He looks at me then, and I look straight back. Just like in the skiff. "Why do you think that was?"

I shrug.

"Come on, Kyra, why do you think Mr. Bad-ass 'I-wanna-be-just-like-him' Riddick let himself get beaten on like that? Bearin' in mind he was two years older than you were when whatever the hell it was happened to you happened."

I shrug again.

"Because...he was...a KID! Kids are young, they're weak, they need protectin'. No one was there to keep me safe, that's not my fault. It's my problem, yeah, but it's not my fault. And it's not your fault either. None of this is."

Fuck.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. He was supposed to be the same straight up ass hole that he was last time I knew him. He was supposed to be easy to hate for what he did. But it's almost as if he's a different person.

Shit, maybe he is.

But so am I.

"What happened in the end?"

He looks away again as he tells me:

"She died." He tells me softly "He killed her. So I killed him."

His voice is differant again now. Is that what I sound when I talk about my first kill? I don't know. I never did it. His voice is soft, gravely. If it was anyone else, I'd think he was about to cry.

"I'm sorry."

He turns to me, smiling sadly.

"For what?"

Where do I start? I'm sorry you were left when you were a baby, I'm sorry you never knew your parents, I'm sorry you had to end up with him, I'm sorry she died...

"It shouldn't have happened."

We sat there for a long time, just sitting, thinking of what we'd learned. I don't think all of what I heard could actually fit into my head. I always thought he was some kind of super-hero. Some kind of guy, who would never take that from anyone, never let it happen.

But he was, and he did.

But suddenly, I noticed something.

"What's your real name, then?

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End Note - Not as long as it was gonna be, but hey…I figured I might just have fans out there waitin' for an update. Besides, I wanna see if anyone works out the story behind his name. It's obvious if you look for it. I guess no one will, but hey…so long as you review, I ain't that bothered.

End Note 2 - I just realised that I've already told you the name…check out 'Family'.