Author's Note: I do not own Riddick, more's the pity. I did not create Slam, merely this interpretation of it. I did not have any hand in the creation of Pitch Black. I did however create Spook, and the other
characters not seen in Pitch Black.

Spook cringed back from him, flattening herself against the damp wall. Her dark eyes darted to the sides. He'd catch her before she could duck under the well-muscled arms. Back to the front, where Riddick's wet, bare chest and muscled body blocked her. She let out a whimpered sigh, lowered her head, closed her eyes.

"Why do you care," she asked in a small voice, a shaking voice. "I'm here. What else matters?"

He just frowned at her, shifting, rolling his shoulders. She watched idly through lowered lids as the muscles slid and twisted beneath his skin. "The answer." Another sigh. The dark eyes closed again, squeezing them tightly shut. "Spook, now." There was a deep, warning tone to the gravel pit voice, a tone that spoke of blood and of pain.

"I'm a Psi. That's why I'm here." Her face was wet, and drops slid over her cheeks. Riddick had a sudden thought that one or two of the trails on her pale face might be tears. He tilted his head to the side, peering at her from under lowered brows, water dripping from his face. She shook her head again, slowly from side to side, eyes still tightly shut. Her breath shuddered, catching in her throat. She crossed her arms over her soaked chest, feeling the coarse, wet material grate against her arms. "I attacked an officer." Her voice was hopeless, small. It reminded him of the silent cringe of a dog expecting a blow.

"A Psi. You expect me to believe that?" His breath puffed the water streaming off his face into hers. It was his turn to shake his head.

Spook tilted her chin up, almost proud in her defiant, angry stare.

"Do you think I'd wear this damned collar if it wasn't the truth?" Her fingertips rested lightly on the steel circlet for a moment before she angrily pushed at his arm, then ducked under it when her attempted force had no effect, stomped barefoot away to where her blankets were. She lifted one, shielding herself with it. Riddick watched her with that cold, glowing, unblinking stare, his fists still planted on the wall, cheek against his shoulder as he gazed at her.

She shivered. That stare always seemed to suck the warmth right out of her, down to her bones. Carefully holding the blanket around her, she peeled off her wet clothes, hanging them over the shower wall to dry. She settled into the corner, hands keeping the blanket tight around her. Under the blanket, her hand rested uneasily on the shiv beneath her arm.

"You've never had to wear this thing. You don't know what it's like!" Her lower lip trembled. "Everyone knows YOU'RE dangerous. You're Riddick. No one knows just how many you've killed. You're a predator. Me? I'm marked as something not natural. You think I'm lying? Think I'd choose something like that?" She let her head s ag, forehead on her pulled up knees, the blanket still tight around her. "Go fuck yourself." Her voice was low, sullen.

The huge man chuckled, his smile hidden behind his shoulder. The sound started deep in his chest, reverberated off the walls, blending with the flowing water to sound like distant thunder. He heaved himself off the wall, reached out to turn off the water, dripped his way over towards her, stooping to pick up his shirt. He tossed his shirt over the partition next to hers. His bare feet squelched wetly on the tile. He looked down at her for a long while. A few drops of water slowly flung themselves from his brow as he stared down at her.

"Go fuck myself?"

She ignored him, keeping her face pressed into her knees and the harsh woolen blanket. Her shoulders shook.

"Look at me." She lifted her face, her brows low over her brooding eyes. "Did you kill him, this officer you attacked?" She shook her head, lowering her face again, damp hair falling to stick to her cheek in a small wavering curl. "You know how to kill. Or did you learn that here?" She faintly nodded.

"Psi aren't good at defending themselves. These collars make this a death sentence." Her voice was muffled by her knees, but he could hear her plain enough.

"Didn't kill you, Spook." He tilted his head to the side. She raised her face to look into his cold gaze, stare deep into the silvered eyes with her open, honest dark ones. The look in her eyes chilled Riddick- there was emotion, pure and strong. Pain, sadness, loss. Right there, thrown into his face. No one in Slam showed things like that. Eyes in the pit were dead things, dead or shined. Nothing got through to them, except occasionally the rage. Her eyes, so honest, so open, held him. As surely as a rat in a trap, her eyes pinned him in place.

"No. It did." She held his gaze, looking deep into his eyes, into him. Her face was damp. There was a red puffiness around her eyes. She shivered in the blanket. But her voice was strangely steady, calm. Quiet, but stable. Subdued, but without even a hint of the tears.

Her head tilted back, her eyes releasing him as she turned them to the ceiling. His body sagged for a moment before he regained himself, straightening, squaring his shoulders, rolling his head, letting the vertebrae snap and pop. She murmured something.

"What was that?"

"Hmm? Oh. Was musing. 'Terrible experiences pose the riddle weather the person who has them is not terrible.'"

"That book of yours. Nietzsche?" She nodded.

"You read it?" His turn to nod, and it brought a smile to her lips. "Discovered that there's not much else to do in a hidey-hole?" She closed her eyes for a moment, tilting her head back against the wall again. She shifted, slipping one arm out of the safety of the blanket. She reached for the other woolen blanket, then tossed it to him with a small smile pulling at the corner of her lip. "Here. The clothes dry faster without a body in them."

He caught the blanket in one hand, stared at it for a long moment. "Not afraid?" He moved closer to her, towering over her. He nearly smiled as she indeed cringed tighter against the wall. Her eyes shifted to the sides, then back to him. There was a slight scent of nerves, the faintest trace of fear in the air.

"I- you had chances before... in my hideaway..."

He took a step back from her, sat down, cross-legged before her.

"'One has to repay good and ill -- but why precisely to the person who has done us good or ill?'"