Author's Note: I do not own Riddick, more's the pity, however I do promise to return him. Even though I'm not sure I want to. 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.

Apparently shock was one of the few emotions that could be written across Riddick's cold face.

For that was what deposed the mask of cool, aloof predator that he liked to keep, leaving an expression would lead one to expect he had just been hit in the head by a rather large piece of wood.

And she had settled onto crossed ankles, staring up at him, the collar at his feet. He stared at her. She watched him, the eyes gentle, glowing with concern, and something else, something warm and soft.

Occasionally her head would twitch, a dog hearing a far off sound beyond its owner's range. Her eyes would go slightly out of focus then, and she would shake herself, snapping herself, her attention, back to the man before her.

For his part, he just watched her with perturbed intensity, looking at the collar at his feet, and back to her. It was all too strange, the suddenness of it all. There, in a crescent before his boots, lay that piece of consternation, the one thorn in the side of his wants.

He stooped, taking the piece of metal into his hands, turning it over and over, looking at the quarter-inch wide metal, the small square of the lock mechanism. It had a strangeness about it. The metal was stiff, but at the same time it had a small amount of give to it. It was still a little warm. This thin piece of circuitry and metal, this little piece of technology, had kept Spook so easily at heel. He looked again at the pale face, glowing in strawberry and cream through the shine, taking in the savage pride, the wildness that had settled into the set of her pouting lips, the creases near her eyes.

That enough should be proof. He let the thought slide through his mind. The confidance, the brashness, the ballsy behavior she's been displaying. That alone should be enough to prove it's real, that she's not that little rabbit anymore.

But it wasn't. It still didn't seem real. He held the collar in his hands, idly turning it over and over. He could look down at her, where she sat carefully on the harsh ground, with just a hint of nerves starting to betray her in her shoulders.

Maybe it was the suddenness that he couldn't handle; he hadn't had to work for it, so it couldn't be real. It couldn't actually have just fallen into his lap, could it? And yet he had seen the proof. Hadn't she been doing it for days, weeks now? Just little things until today.

He glanced back, shooting the barest look to the crumpled cadaver behind him.

There was simply no explaining that.

There was no way of rationalizing how that huge man had dropped, had writhed in agony, screaming, while his body broke itself. The eyes were still wide, staring through the milky film that had covered them since that horrible death.

It sent a chill along Riddick's spine.

It was one thing to kill a man, to feel his blood pour out over your hands, to plunge the shiv into his back or pull the walking ghost onto the blade. The end result was the same, and there was an intimacy about it. Closeness filled that kind of kill, their blood marking you, touching you, changing you ever so slightly, even as your shiv sent their world into a spiral from which it would never return.

But that...

She hadn't laid a finger at him; hadn't even raised her hands. Just leveled those eyes touched with curiosity behind that cold shine.

And he was just as dead as she'd sliced his throat.

And that poor bastard hadn't stood a chance.

She could kill without touching; stand back and ghost a full grown man without breaking a sweat.

All for want of a little strip of metal and circuitry.

His eyes sought her throat, still not quite believing.

But there, beneath her earnest face, was the long, clean line of her throat, bare. There wasn't a mark he could spot there. Just the soft flesh.

"Spook, what happened."

Riddick had fallen, the tide of blows too much even for him. The guard behind her held her battered flesh in a grip of iron, his skin as cold, except where the heat of blood showed that her nails had marked him. Her struggles were negligible to the man, merely urging him to murmur into her ear to urge her to fight him more.

All she could see was her protector, the huge form of him struck over and over by a pair of shocksticks, her own body protesting as she watched, feeling the ghost pains of those strikes.

"It was when Khyron tried to kill you..."

She struggled harder, her eyes wide and wet, her fear for the life of the massive killer giving her new wind. The guard's fingers gripped her tighter, digging gouts in her pale flesh. She cried out, but not for the pains of her own flesh. Her protector had gone down, a press of inmates bearing him to the floor. He was still bellowing, still fighting.

"When you went for him, when they all hit you at once..."

She heaved against the binding arms of Talbot, squirming, twisting, struggling like a demented serpent. He lifted her then, squeezing her tighter, crushing her breath from her small body.

He lifted her. She resisted, resolutely throwing her muscles against his. And then he was arched slightly back, and she knew what to do.

She kicked. Like a recalcitrant mule she struck, and let loose a small cry of triumph when her heel connected and she felt the odd pop beneath her foot. She had come down on the top of his knee, and with enough force to damage it. She didn't know if it was his kneecap going out of its narrow groove or if she had managed to break the same, but it didn't matter.

Down he went.

And he dropped her as he collapsed.

"Talbot was still holding me, fighting with me. I wanted to get to you, to help you somehow. I didn't know anything else to do..."

She started forward. She cried out to the man buried beneath the tide of armed men. The cement bit into her bare feet as she scrambled over it.

Getting to that man, to her fallen protector, was all that mattered. Her vision narrowed, only showing her that pile, the writhing tangle of bodies.

But Talbot had more stamina than he thought. With the near-comical jerk of a dog hitting the end of a chain, she snapped to a halt, yanking backward. Her breath stopped coming. She felt his clenched fist against the nape of her neck.

He was pulling her back towards him, snarling at her, cursing her.

"He grabbed the collar, using it to pull me back to him. It was when he did that that I knew... He must've thumbed it. All of a sudden it was like being caught in the echo of a shouting crowd, hearing everything and its reverberation. I don't know how, but all of a sudden I had two grenades... I knew that the collar was off then. And I knew how to get you out." She turned those sad eyes up to his face again, tilting her head to one side. "All this time without it... It's like when I got the shine, and suddenly being able to see again. Like the world suddenly is back in focus." She closed her eyes, sagging a little. "He must have thumbed the lock when he grabbed the collar, when he yanked me back. That's when it happened." Again she turned her large doe eyes to him. Her hands rested limp in her lap.

The boots creaked ever so faintly as the massive man knelt before her, bringing his face close to hers. She felt the soft caress of his breath as he stared intently into her eyes. He rolled his shoulders, flexed his hands, shifted his back.

She sat quietly before him, her lips pulling into a faint smile.

She didn't flinch when his hand suddenly gripped her chin, tilting her face up, the other touching the smooth arc of her throat. There was a slight patch of roughness, where the shoulder met the lines of her neck. A chaffed point. Rough fingertips brushed it lightly.

"How long have you worn that goddamn thing, rabbit?" The gravel of the voice washed over her, bringing the hint of a smile to her lip.

"Not entirely sure... Was 16 biological when I came here, about the same chronological... I think it's been about five years... Maybe only four, maybe six."

"And you can hear us all? All our thoughts and shit?" He pulled back ever so slightly. It wasn't a comfortable thing, the concept of a little girl being able to root around in his head, that she could learn whatever she wanted about him straight from his own brain. There was shit inside there he couldn't admit to himself... he'd be damned if he wanted her to know it.

She studied his face for a long moment, hair curling before her eyes.

"Not all of it. Block most of it... Been working on that since it happened, you know? It's too much, otherwise. Sensory Overload. Now I only hear some of it... The shouted thoughts. I don't want to hear them all." Fingertips lightly brushed his wrist, a warm touch against the chill that had been creeping over him. "I don't like to look into peoples' heads. I haven't looked into yours, if that's what you're worried about."

Silence. Long, deep, and filled with decisions, it prowled between them.

Eyes bored deep into eyes, his dark and brooding, hers soft, expectant. There was honesty in hers, unguarded, open.

And willingness. She would tell him anything.

And he nodded, curt, accepting. "All right, rabbit." The hand touched her cheek. "We shouldn't sit here, anyway. You can explain this all on the way back to the hole."