Chapter 1, yay! The return of Riddick and Jack…come on! You didn't think that I'd actually killed them off, did you? No, of course you didn't! You read the prequel! Here is the next part. Lots of questions asked in this one but not many answers yet. Have to get writing soon…

Thanks to bima and Riddick's Sita for your reviews and for following the Job through to completion. Hopefully I can finish this one too, but I'm getting ahead of myself!

Hope you like!

Happy Reading!

Gem

xxx

Chapter 1: Three years later.

'Riddick?'

'Are you there?'

She glanced about her attempting to take in her surroundings, but they were obscured, unreadable, an insubstantial darkness that her shined eyes could not penetrate.

'Riddick?' She repeated again, glancing about fearfully. 'Can you hear me?'

Silence…

Nothing…

Then the voice came, seeping into her mind and heart like an icy mist. Gripping her body with thin, skeletal fingers that clenched about her so tightly that she couldn't breath. Couldn't escape. Trapped!

'He is gone.' the voice announced cheerfully, though she felt none of that happiness, only a deep dread in her gut.

'Where?' she demanded, forcing her fear down. 'Where has he gone?'

The voice laughed. A tinkling that reminded her of trickling water into a stream. 'Away…' came the enigmatic, sing-song reply and she fought desperately at the panic that attempted to claw it's way up, to escape from where she held it at bay .

'Why?' she growled, feeling herself frown as she spun trying desperately and in vain to see into the impregnable darkness. To see the voice's owner. The panic tore again at her heart, ripping at it viciously.

She knew what was coming next. She'd had this encounter so many times that she could speak the words that had etched a deep fear into her very soul…she knew they were coming…and the voice knew that she knew.

The voice laughed again, but at her this time and she heard the malice and hate that was harboured for her behind that simple sound.

Then the words came. The words that she shrank away from every time. That she tried frantically not to hear, whether that was clamping her hands to her ears or shouting at the top of her lungs.

She always heard them though…without exception.

'He has gone for her…'

-00000-

Jack jolted awake, sitting bolt upright in the small bed. Her instincts that had been ingrained into her from her sentence in Butcher's Bay, causing her slender, scarred hand to flash out, lightening quick in a reflex action to snatch up the shiv that she kept on her bedside table…just in case. Her breathing came out in great laboured rasps as she attempted to still her racing pulse, her mercury, darkness invading eyes darting about the cabin, searching for anything, any sign of danger. Panic ripped through her slight frame, her shoulders trembling with exertion, glistening with a thin sheen of sweat and the shiv that she had snatched up quivered in her white-knuckled grasp.

Slowly, as the seconds trickled by into minutes, her heart rate began to return to normal and she replaced her shiv onto the nightstand, having convinced her raging instincts that there was no threat directly at hand. Finally she glanced over her shoulder, almost warily, at the man cramped into the undersized bed beside her, hoping beyond all futile hope that she hadn't disturbed him…again. She knew he'd be awake though, and she nearly winced when she looked down and was met by a single silvery orb, that matched her own, studying her intently.

"You okay?" his voice rumbled through the suddenly thick air and Jack nodded in an attempt to brush away her increasingly frequent awakenings. He didn't believe her. He never did and his other eye opened, fixing her with an invading, sceptical glare.

"It was just another dream." she muttered, trying and failing to sound nonchalant. Her voice wavered in her throat and she frowned, more angry with herself for showing such weakness than with him for his overpowering concern. She drew the blanket tighter about her suddenly chilled shoulders and turned herself away from his worried expression as she lay back down forcefully, signalling an end to their conversation. She'd had enough similar disturbances to her slumber, however, to know that this was not the end. No, far from it. Riddick wasn't one to let things lie, especially when it came to her and this time was going to be no exception.

His large, firm hand gripped her shoulder tightly, giving her a light jolt, but Jack simply slapped it away evoking an angry growl from deep within his throat.

"Jack…" he demanded, warningly, his hand returning to her shoulder in a second attempt at getting her attention. His large, callused fingertips dug into her slightly causing a dull ache to start deep in her arm muscles and Jack fended his hand off again.

"You wanna lose that hand, Bucko? 'Cause I'm about to get shiv-happy on it!" she snarled but instead of withdrawing, the hand slithered in a swift motion down her body, smoothing across her stomach and following the contours of her figure and legs until it reached her knee, clutching it. "I fucking mean it, Riddick!" Jack spoke again, knowing what he was about to do, a dangerous tone lacing it's way through her words, meant as a deterrent but he ignored her, using her knee as a lever and turning her over in a lightening fast motion that left her feeling dizzy.

Silver eyes bored into silver eyes. Riddick searching deep within Jack's to find an answer and Jack trying her hardest to keep those answers under lock and key. She never could though. Since he came for her in Butcher's Bay, since he stayed with her while she sought out and repaid those men who had used her like she was nothing of worth, Riddick had been the only man that she had allowed past her defences. Not even intentionally. He was just in there one day. Like they were suddenly transmitting on the same frequency. Like they were linked together somehow. Inexplicably.

Jack sighed finally resting her head on her arm and softening her stare. He was the only one who had cared what she was feeling. Sure, following their escape from Butcher's Bay three years ago, he had just been after the sex. That was all that she could offer him. That was all that she'd had left after the traumatic life she had lived over the space of five years. She'd been just as bad, though. She had needed him physically before she could need him mentally as well and their sexual relations kept them together. Stopped Riddick from going out to find it elsewhere and breaking the heart that Jack had been developing, the feelings that she had slowly begun to feel again. They had worked through it…together and, though she would never admit it to his face nor he to hers, she loved him, and he loved her.

She rubbed at her forehead with her free hand, her star-bright gaze shifting from his momentarily. "It was just another dream, Riddick." she said more softly, settling herself into a more comfortable position, squashed into the single-man bed beside him. "You can't fight dreams. Besides, I bet they'll go away in a couple of nights time."

Riddick gave a grunt of reply, still not entirely willing to give the conversation up just yet and unconvinced by her reasoning. "The same dream?" he asked and Jack paused for a long moment, simply watching his face, the way his eyes traced over her in consternation, before giving a reluctant nod of her head.

"That ain't normal, Jack, and you know it!" he continued, his voice stern. He reached over the distance between them, opening his mouth to speak again, but a loud blaring alarm drowned out anything that he had been intent on saying.

Riddick was out of the bed in an instant, dragging on his clothes from the previous night that had been discarded at various intervals through the room. Jack, however, had further a field to hunt for hers, which lay in a trail throughout the corridors of their ship, "The Bawdy Mistress". She scowled at his retreating back as she scooped up her clothing on her way to the cockpit, waiting until she got there to pull them on. Riddick was already flipping buttons and turning switches, concentration clear on his face and making a small smile of endearment tug at Jack's lips.

"Stop smirking at me, woman, and put your damn clothes on!" he growled without looking up from the task at hand and Jack narrowed her eyes, though she thought better of making a retort, instead complying and pulling her wrinkled garments on.

"Where are we?" Jack asked, slipping into the co-pilot's seat and pulling up the navigation charts on the com-screen before her, scrolling down through the information that the ship's computer seemed content to spit out at her.

Riddick turned to glance her, her brow furrowed in complete absorption of her task much as he had been seconds before. Her long hair swept up and from her face in a ponytail that always seemed unable to catch every strand, leaving wisps and curls to fall about her face in a soft frame. Beautiful.

"Stop smirking at me, man, and answer the damn question!" she grinned, mimicking his earlier comment and tone and Riddick chuckled turning back to the controls.

"Welcome to Helion Prime, Jack."

-00000-

There you have it. The first chapter. Hope it's okay. I know it's a bit short but I'm getting there. What is Jack dreaming of? Who is 'the Voice'? Hee hee. Oh dear, aren't I evil? Please comment, criticise, review and anything else that you wish! Thankies!