What happens between goodbyes?
Sweat, blood, and fatigue filled the small space as Minx saw the doors close behind Riddick. Jack raced foreword to look at him but he didn't seem to see her. He was still, stiff, and cold.
Minx looked at Jack and Jack met her gaze. There seemed to be a moment of understanding as Jack slipped into the passenger seat behind them. Minx sat to his right and began checking for damage.
A jolting rip tilted the ship and Minx held on to whatever she could. She looked down at the screen and noticed that they weren't alone. Cursing Riddick shifted the ship around and some how dodged another attack.
The lights flickered but recovered as a heavy invisible weight pressed down onto her chest. It squeezed at her chest until she felt tears well up in her eyes. Riddick must've almost floored the engines for it to have this effect on her.
Her eyes squeezed shut tightly as the ship shot out of the ports, leaving the debris and dead Mercs behind. The stars and bleakness of space met them as she let a breath go. In front of her another screen showed a red dot coming up fast behind them. Inwardly she cringed, knowing that it could only be one thing.
"Shit, Riddick we got company!" Minx found herself saying.
"Get in the back and ghost their asses, I'm busy." He growled, making her fists clench in anger as she got up from the chair. She knew he was right but then again she wasn't used to taking brute orders.
Into the dark recesses pf the ship she went, down the hall and to the farthest wall. Crouching she gripped the cut out in the floor and slipped inside. Her feet searched for the first few rungs of the ladder downward as she gripped the cold metal. Her stomach rolled as the ship capsized and flipped over, doing something like a spiraling roll.
"Damn it Riddick!" She swore, knowing he probably just saved their asses.
She held on as the hulking ship finally returned upright, not knowing how far she had to fall between the ladder and the floor. "Lights 20" She said tiredly, they obeyed and what was revealed was a modern gun turret, surrounded by tinted flexi-glass and a view of an eternity of space below and around her.
Swallowing she reminded herself never to look down as she slipped into the chair and saw the ship that was trying to obliterate them. Pushing a familiar green button the view finder slipped down in front of her face and she spied the ship before her; bleak, black, strong, and too large for her guns.
"What the hell are you waiting for?" Riddick's voice suddenly filled the small space, making her heart pound in surprise. She slipped on the headset haphazardly but didn't answer.
She lined the gun up to the nose of the ship and fired. The force of it jolted her back into her seat, but the actual hit did little damage. Aiming again she fired and burned a good portion of a wing making the whole ship tip down ward.
But it only wobbled and fired again this time almost hitting them, Riddick dodged it and this time she tried something new. She fired just to the side of them and as they moved out of the way she switched and hit them dead on, letting the laser slice along the underbelly and ignite the fuel tanks below.
Moments of stillness filled her vision until and silent ripple spread out around the Merc ship. The ripple retracted back to the ship and seemed to disappear, the second she blinked the Merc ship burst into flames. A green glow surrounded it in a halo of nuclear sulfur and red fire.
With ever second came another loud boom of exploding gasses from the threat that now floated in shambles, space junk. She stayed in the seat looking around carefully for a while longer, now skeptic of silence or peace. But when the infinity of calm darkness around her stayed she let a long sigh go.
She found herself in the dark hall again, although this time the lightless hallway unnerved her. A few hairs raised on her neck as she continued to venture down the short hall. Something was wrong, but then again she was starting to feel the burns on her arms and the cuts on her shoulders, it wasn't right.
With a shrug she began to step into the dimly lit cockpit, but an arm clamped tightly around her neck. She let out a strangled breath as the arm tightened and the cold metal barrel of a gun was pressed to her side.
A rasping cough erupted from her throat, gaining Jack's attention. Her eyes widened and a scream filled the air.
Riddick
He heard Jack scream and immediately drew his shiv. But what he saw made him conceal the blade once again. There at the mouth of the dark hallway stood a grinning Merc, his sickly pale skin and black as night hair gleaming under the light.
The Merc had his arm wrapped around her neck, squeezing just enough so that redness rose to her face. Somewhere deep inside him a foreign fear stabbed him, although his face showed nothing, he was mad enough to kill.
"Jack take the controls." He said, faintly aware of her obeying and moving quickly around him. He met the man's chilling eyes and saw the familiar heartless fire that raged there.
"So, you're the infamous Richard B. Riddick, never thought I'd catch you with a beauty like this, pity she's going down with you." The Merc said slowly, Riddick studied him and felt his mind take over his instinct.
"You're enjoying this aren't you?" Riddick ask him patiently, guessing that what the Merc really wanted was him.
The Merc nodded, "Yes, I enjoy my work."
"Yea, I enjoy mine too. Killing is my favorite part." He responded, watching the Merc stiffen slightly as Riddick stepped up to Minx.
"Mine is the money I'm gonna get off your ass." The Merc said, throwing Minx roughly into the wall and aiming two guns at Riddick.
Riddick paid no mind and let his breath leave him in nothing but a shallow thought. He grasped both the man's wrists in his palms and began to twist outward. When one gun dropped to the floor Riddick let his shiv be known across the man's neck.
The slice was just enough to kill but not to brutally murder. The man slumped to the floor with a thin rill of blood leaking down his neck, but noting else. Standing there motionless he let the adrenaline that fogged his mind leave and realities take its place.
Jack
"Don't move kid. I've got something to take care of." She heard Riddick's cold voice from behind her, and without guessing she knew exactly what had happened.
Jack felt nausea consume her, the fear had worn off and nothing was left. She felt the burning need to look over her shoulder, but knew better, if Riddick told her not to, she shouldn't.
She didn't listen to Riddick once when he'd told her not to move. Because of her curiosity she almost saw him kill a man; he was much like the Merc from moments before. Even though she closed her eyes for the worst part she still had nightmares for weeks after that, it had been so horrible.
Silence filled the room as she saw a red light beep and flash on the panel, under the little red light was two simple words, trash cremator. Jack gulped at the thought, whoever the Merc was he was now reduced to ash.
She sensed Riddick coming down the hall and turned in her seat, only to see Minx lying on her side, jumbled unnaturally on the floor. Jack immediately looked from Minx's form to Riddick's face trying to see any emotion but what she found was just blankness, nothing more.
She should've known, but she guessed maybe this once he might show some emotion, but like always he didn't.
Her eyes clouded up as she looked down at Minx's still body, "When the Merc threw her she hit her head." She found herself saying, a wet hot tear slipped down her cheek and she cursed the asshole for doing this to her friend.
Riddick nodded and bent down by Minx's side, he put his fingers just below her neck, seeming to study her closely, but through his goggles Jack couldn't tell. After a long moment he moved her flat on her back and scooped her up into his arms.
"Don't worry kid. She just got knocked out. In a couple of hours she'll be fine." Riddick said gently, his voice uncharacteristically soft. Jack looked at him, then Minx, then back at Riddick's face once again. She studied it for a long moment before nodding and believing him.
"I'll go man the controls." She said distantly. Once she was huddled in the steel chair she looked out at the dark sky and listened to the silence, she just hoped that Minx would really be okay.
Riddick
Minx's midnight hair brushed his arm as he continued down the hall. Her limp body still warm, and although her breathing was shallow, it was still there. For that he was thankful for a moment he thought she was gone.
Shaking his thoughts away he made his mind go blank and soon he neared the end of the hall. His heart rate sped up as he walked into the small bedroom, it's darkness not phasing him as he ordered the lights up to a mere glow.
As he stood next to the bed he stalled for a moment, her weight was almost nothing in his arms, but that wasn't what was stopping him from putting her down. He felt funny, awkward but comfortable at the same time. Something had to be wrong with him.
Bending slightly, he put her in the center of the bed; she lay on her back as if she was asleep and nothing more, but somehow she seemed so far away. He brought his hand down to her neck to check her pulse again just to be sure she was all right.
But instead his fingers caressed her cheek, soon slipping downward across her bottom lip. Riddick studied her face a moment and let a long breath leave him.
He brushed away a stray lock of hair from her cheek, smiling down at her, something that was completely foreign for him to do. The moment was shattered when he saw the black burns on her arms, the cuts on her shoulders, and the bruises on her hands.
He knew that they were minor but his brow furrowed just the same. He ran his fingers over the wounds one by one, having the same sort many a time he knew by feel what to do for each.
It took him a long moment but he got together some stuff that helped them heal and look better. He removed his goggles to get a better look and his eyes drifted up to her calm face. The youth of it was present without the lines of the world, she looked younger, almost Jack's age, but it had a different effect on him.
He remembered the kiss they shared lifetimes ago, the fire he felt, and the emotion that tightened his chest. But he shook his head and tried to stop thinking. Two months was all he knew of her and somehow he grew to need her.
Maybe he was more human then he thought. Riddick never paid much attention to sincere feelings like this. His life was full of pain, tolerance, survival, and circumstance. It never contained anything more than that, until he met Jack.
She started to change things, giving him a light, a friend. But it wasn't the same light that he felt with Minx, he didn't need to protect her or raise her, Hocks had been right once again.
Riddick felt a jolt of pain course through him and was reminded of his own wounds. But he shook them away and finished wrapping her wrist with gauze. The white of the material laced her peach skin as he taped it up and placed her wrist back at her side.
He stood finally and looked down at her for a long second before walking out the door and letting it close behind him.
Jack
She sat in the captain's seat and felt a yawn come over her. "Go to sleep kid, I'll take over from here." She turned to see Riddick standing next to her seat.
She nodded and noticed that his burns and scrapes were looking better then before, "How is she?" Jack found herself asking.
Riddick got settled into the chair and adjusted the controls, "She's fine, don't think she has a concussion." He said almost too casually, but she decided to ignore it.
All she could do was nod, "Alright, I'm gonna go ta sleep." She said lazily, sensing Riddick's attention elsewhere.
"'Night kid." He said quietly, his shaven head tipped up to the stars.
"'Night." She mimicked. She turned and walked down the hall that Riddick had just come from taking the bedroom in the middle of the hall, knowing he liked to have the once closest to the door.
Once inside she turned on the light to a glow, thoughts of Riddick and of a passed out Minx still swarming around in her mind. To herself she had to admit that Riddick was acting strangely.
He didn't show any more emotion than usual, but there was this air about him, something had changed. Although she dared not try and think of what it was, she knew it had something to do with Minx because he changed shortly after she'd been hurt.
Logic told her he was coming down from the taste of human blood, killing someone always made him distant. He was like that for a while after they left T2, he'd killed once when a Merc threatened them at a stop they'd made.
For a couple hours after that he remained the way he was now. Silent, subdued, and almost stone like. Jack's thoughts turned to Minx as she laid her head down in the soft pillow and sleep took her.