Wow! Finally got part 4 out! Woooooo! Sorry it took so long but I've been slaving away over my dissertation! But I finished it and handed it in! Yay! So hopefully my posts won't be as far apart as they have been! Hope this is okay. Kinda edging towards the wrap up soon (sniff). But not for another three or four parts. Got it all planned out now so it should be pretty smooth sailing from here to the end. Fingers crossed it turns out okay. Well, this chap is the lead up to the fight scene (dun, dun, DUN!) which I'm working on real hard coz I want it to be good! Any tips or comments about writing fight scenes would be great. But I won't say anymore…don't wanna give it all away!

Thank you all for continuing to comment. I really appreciate it.

Okay Happy Reading!

Gem

xxx

The Job (part 4).

"Ain't no knight in shining armour coming for me anytime soon…"

Riddick's ardent incandescent eyes scanned her face as she spoke, unreadable to her entirely as they had been since the first time she had met him. She felt her skin burn almost where his eyes caressed, scrutinising her, attempting to dissect her as if she were a fucking test subject, an animal to be studied! She clenched her teeth and ground them together as irritation laced it's way down her spine and tingled in her chest, but she remained silent. Riddick obviously had something he wanted to say and she was inquisitive as to what it was. Even though Jack could not read the emotions that danced behind his eyes, tauntingly close, his soul irretrievably concealed behind the thin film of his iris', his body language was something that she had become fluent in, even after the sparse amount of time that they had spent together. The slight tensing of the muscles in his neck and shoulders was the first sign. A dead giveaway. The pursing of his lips and almost imperceptible tapping of his right thumb against the surface of the table were the final clues, illustrating that he was thinking, and thinking hard!

Jack swallowed the smirk of satisfaction at having read him so well that threatened to spill forth onto her lips and drummed her fingers on the tabletop again repeatedly, breaking the sanctimonious silence that they had found swirling about them as they sat face-to-face, head-to-head, glittering eye-to-glittering eye.

Finally, Riddick straightened in his seat and, resting his elbows upon the edge of the table, laced his rough, calloused fingers together, almost level with his chin. A one sided smile clawed at the corner of his lips and he blinked, once and deliberately, drawing a deep, slow, gentle breath.

"Maybe you just ain't seein' him." He said after the very nearly torturous paused and Jack wrinkled her nose up in scornful confusion.

"Ain't seein' who?" she queried, her voice tinged with disdain yet at the same moment a profound, unspoken curiosity that sounded so much like her younger self that Riddick found himself holding his breath and simply staring at her until she repeated the question. Then she spoke again and the slight glimmer of youthful pureness that she had shown him dissipated like mist in the sunlight. "I'm seein' lotsa men, Riddick. I got lotsa…customers, so you're gonna have to elaborate a little on who the 'him' is."

Riddick shook his clean shaven head and turned his gaze disappointedly to the table. "Never mind." He growled out, his voice little more than a guttural rumble of barely concealed frustration. Was Jack beyond help? Was she unwilling to be helped?

Annoyance assaulted him suddenly, partly at Jack's stubbornness and partly at his own inability to get through to her, to draw the old Jack back out. His head snapped back up to her and the faint grin of the Beast within him filtered out onto his features. Perhaps the Beast could succeed where his humanity failed. He gave a mocking, sideways shake of his head and drew air through his clenched teeth in a slight hissing sound of admonishment. "You're a fuckin' lucky girl, Jack." He beamed sarcastically, leaning forwards as if he was about to share a valuable secret with her, though she regarded him with wary silver eyes. "It's a fuckin' good job that they give you the contraceptive injection and STD vaccinations before they let little harlots like you loose." He leaned back into his chair suddenly, folding his arms behind his head in satisfaction at the scowl darkening her face. "Other wise you'd be even further up Shit Creek and without a boat, let alone a pissing paddle!" he chuckled at his own words though Jack found them less than amusing.

She snorted, allowing her mouth to twist up into a snarl, revealing her brilliant white teeth. "You're such a condescending fuck, you know that?" she growled, tasting the contempt on the tip of her tongue as her words spat forwards vehemently. "When the hell did you start caring what the fuck happened to me!" she queried heatedly, her eyes flashing steely lightening at him.

Riddick declined to reply and Jack nodded with self-satisfaction as if his silence had proved her right. "When you left me on Helion Prime, in New Mecca, you lost any right you ever had to lecture me in what I can and cannot do." She paused and narrowed her tempestuous eyes, turning her head away from him slowly to stare at the damp, stone wall of her cell. A mute snort shook her body for a split second before she folded her arms across her chest in a defensive posture. "Your sentiments are a little fucking late, Riddick! And now they aren't worth shit to me!"

Riddick sat back in his chair again, shaking his head with a bitter smile. His large hand moved up to cap his skull, rubbing at the stubbly skin as if attempting to relieve a pounding headache. His sigh was impatient and filled with an annoyance that Jack had only ever heard once before. When Riddick had been talking to Johns on the nightmarish world that threw them together in the first place.

"Thought we'd established that you can't pin all your problems on me, Jack. I ain't your fuckin' scapegoat." He growled, only a single mercury orb visible from beneath the massive hand that had moved to massage his temples.

Jack contemplated that comment for what seemed like hours, though in reality it was little more than a scattering of minutes at the most. She turned her eyes back to him, studying him again, noticing the clenching and unclenching of his free hand and the twitch of a muscle in his jaw where he ground his teeth together in frustration. He was exquisite in his fury, in his natural emotion. More so than she had ever remembered. His soft lips pursed slightly as his teeth behind them harassed each other. His dark brows furrowed and drawn together in gently sweeping arcs or ire. The muscles in his shoulders, chest and back smooth contours that stood as monuments to his physical prowess. Beautiful…

Stop it! She hissed at herself mentally. Stop remembering things! Stop remembering him! He's just another job!

Talking with him, having a conversation, sharing a smoke, interacting with him brought the ghost of emotions that were liable to get her killed bubbling back to the surface again. There had been too much talking. Too much playful banter. She had to end it, for her sanity's sake if nothing else, and end it fast!

"No." she agreed after an extended heartbeat, her eyes searching his as if she could glimpse his thoughts through those galvanized pupils. "You ain't a scapegoat, Riddick. You're a lot of things, but a scapegoat ain't one of 'em." She halted her speech, her nostrils flaring in fury. Even the scent of him, the musky smell of sweat, adrenalin and his profound masculinity only served to enrage her further as her body began to respond to him in ways that her heart didn't want to accept just yet. "I would have been better off dieing on that fucking planet than having to live through all the shit I have since you cut out and ditched me!" she ground her words out through clenched teeth, spitting them in Riddick's direction though his face remained stoic. Jack nodded at his lack of response as if she had been expecting it. "See, I knew you didn't really care about me and my shit." She grinned in triumph, slapping a palm down in victory and making the table shudder briefly. "Life's a bitch, ain't that what you used to say? That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?" she raised her eyebrows, leaning forwards and closer to him, awaiting for his reply.

Riddick didn't bat an eyelid as she spoke, he simply watched her, examined her the way that she had done with him moments earlier. She was playing a game, he could sense as much, though what she intended to gain from it he didn't know. His eyes followed her movements as the corners of her lips curled upwards at his continuing hush and she brushed a few stray curls of her shoulder length hair from her face absentmindedly with a twitch of her fingers. She was planning something, Riddick knew it. He'd always been able to tell when she had been scheming or lying, even when he had first set eyes on her when she had been pretending to be a boy. Even if he hadn't had such an acute sense of smell he would have spotted her falsehood a mile off. The secret was her body language. She chewed on the inside of her check when she was trying to turn a situation her way, and five years down the line, she still had that little telltale habit. Riddick smirked as she nibbled at it, her eyes flickering over him, feather light, as she watched him watching her.

Stalemate.

"What do you want me to say, Jack?" he sighed finally with a blasé shrug. "Shit happens and there only two things you can do about it. Forget it. Or get even." He paused and cocked his head to one side, gauging her reaction to his comments. "Shit happened to you, and you dealt with it. End of story."

Jack choked out a chuckle from deep in her throat, shaking her head and making her wavy tresses shiver about her face in the stale air. "I'm not after your pity, Riddick." She turned her head to the side and spat onto the floor beside him in disdain. "Your sympathy would be worthless, if you had any." She leaned back in her chair, pillowing the back of her head with her crossed arms again, a smug look playing on her features and Riddick had the distinct sinking feeling that told him he was playing right into her devious little hands.

"S'a good job I ain't offerin' you any then, isn't it?" he retorted snidely, attempting to win back control of the situation. "You want me to say sorry, Jack? You want me to apologise for something I knew nothing about?" he demanded though he doused his smile as Jack clenched her teeth harder than she ever had before, the pressure so intense that she thought her jaw might shatter from the sheer force. She stood abruptly, her chair legs squealing in protest as they scraped against the uneven, stone floor.

"You lied to me, Riddick." She spoke finally, her voice quiet with controlled anger. "You promised that you'd come back for me and you didn't."

Riddick tried in vain to speak but Jack cut him off with a swift slicing motion of her arm.

"Instead it's taken you five years. Five fucking years! And you're only here 'coz some fake-assed badge punk got lucky!" she shook her head with rage and disappointment, crossing her arms under her breasts and leaning her weight on one leg. She should have been used to such feelings by now as she had been let down so many times by people that she had trusted, people that she had counted friends…people she had loved.

Her eyes narrowed to mere slits of chrome. "I wish you had fucking died on that planet instead of Fry. She wouldn't have left me to begin with no matter who was on her tail!" she spoke the words with little volume but they still served their purpose in getting a reaction from the previously impassive man sitting before her.

-00000-

Next up we have part 5 the fight scene between Riddick and Jack. Want to make it good coz the on in Chronicles was less of a fight and more of a scuffle. My fight scene is the key to how this fic ends so I'm gonna try and work my little sockies off. Please comment, tips, hints, criticism to help me see where I'm going wrong. Thankies for your help!