Summery – Still the same story

AN: I'm still thick, so the Iare still my italics.

Disclaimer: IGazes longingly at Riddick desktopIWhy don't I own that?

Two days later, and she's off again. Jack's visiting the boy, and needless to say, she's off to Joannes and won't be long. 'Course, I gotta follow her, haven't I?

There's a gap between two of the houses on our street which lets you through the the other street across, the one with the boyfriend on it. Jack goes around, I go through. That way, I can watch her the entire time, and when she's in the house, I dash for serenity Park.

There's no one in the streets...either of them...so I know I'm safe. Jack jogs to the boyfriends' house. She knocks on the door, and the zit walks out, kisses her on the cheek...IDon't rip his head off...don't rip his throat out...you ain't even meant to be here, RiddickII tell myself.

She smiles at him and they disappear into the house. My chance. I make my dash for the park, calm and serene as you like.

"RICHARD!"

Fuck.

"You came to visit me!"

The kid from the day before last comes screemin over to me, grabs onto my hand. I try to shake her off, but the kid seems completely retarded.

"Not quite, kid." I try to tell her, pullin' my hand away from hers. I head towards the park again, and she follows me.

"Where are you going?" She whines. "You only just got here, and I want you to meet my mommy."

I have to stop myself from laughing at that.

"I don't think your mommy'll wanna meet me, kid." I tell her honestly.

"Sure she would!" Koli screeches. "She'll be glad I got a new friend!"

I can see Jack and another shadow, probably the boyfriend, through the upstairs window of his house. If she looks out the window, I'm standing right in her view. I try again to make a break towards the end of the road, the kid still on my heels.

"Don't you have any other friends your own age you can tell her about?" I ask, more than just a little annoyed by now.

"No," she tells me, sorta sad. What the hell? That can't be right. This kid's what, five years old? You show me a five year old with no friends.

"How's that then, kid?" I, pulling a U-turn into her garden. Not the park, but out of Jack's view at least.

"They don't like my daddy and my daddy doesn't like them," She tells me.

I shrug. Not my problem.

"Meet my mommy?"

No fuckin way.

"Listen, kid, your Mommy ain't gonna like me very much." I try telling her as I see Jack's shadow move away from the window. I try to leave to head back to the park whilst I have the chance, but she grabs my fingers again.

"Pleeeeeeeeeeease!"

IPlease, CarolynI, I try arguing with my conscience, affectionately named after IherI. IPlease let me just kill herI.

"No, kid. I said no."

She lets' go of my hand and steps back, her eyes widening and the bottom lip quivering.

IAww, shit.I

"Don't cry, kid." I try to tell her. "I just don't want no one no one knowin' I'm here, that's all. The only ones I want to know about me are the ones who already do."

"Well, I know about you." She reasons.

"That you do, kid." I tell her, tryin' to walk away again. Again, she grabs my hand.

"Will you come back?" She asks, hopeful.

IAww shitI...I moan. She'll probably start cryin' or something if I say no. Then her mom'll come out givin me hell and the already cold welcome Jack and I get here will freeze over entirely. I don't care about it, personally, but it'd fuck up Jacks time of it an all.

"Okay," I tell her in the end. "I'll come back and visit you sometime."

"Yeeeeeeeee!" She squeals. "Richard's gonna visit, Richard's gonna visit."

IPlease Carolyn? PLEASE?I

III

"What the hell's going on out there?" Damian muttered to himself as he stood up and made his way towards the window.

"Damian," he girlfriend moaned as he opened the window to hear better. "I got a head-ache already. You make it worse and I'll get seriously shiv-happy on your ass!"

Damian smiled. Sure, his girlfriend scared the hell out of him sometimes. Her shiv was damn sharp, and she knew how to use it, he'd seen that. But she was one of the nicest people he knew. She had told him a few times that she had learned fighting from her foster father, but she never told him who he was.

Hell, he didn't even know who she was. Not really. Her name was Jaclyn B. Badd as far as she told him, and she was not registered. He tracked her once, out of boredom and curiosity. It revealed she had once been registered aboard a ship, the Hunter Gratzner, which had gone missing, and then later aboard a Merc ship. After that, nothing. The Merc ship reported her dead a few days after she had signed up to them.

He hadn't asked her, hoping that she would tell him some day on her own. A person like her would undoubtedly not appreciate being tracked, and besides, he'd probably gotton it wrong anyway somehow.

He didn't care though. A person like her was worth the doubt. Worth the not knowing.

"What's going on?" She asked, coming up behind him where he stood at the window.

"Not sure, he told her. "Coli next door shouting the odds, I think."

Sure enough, drifting in from outside was a small voice chanting "Richard's gonna visit, Richard's gonna visit!"

IHuh?IShe thought Iit can't be..I.

She peered over her boyfriends shoulder and saw outside a small child, running around her garden, being chased by a very familiar man.

"Riddick," Jack growled. She dashed out of the room, grabbing her shiv off the bed and with a look on her face Damian could describe only as murderous. "I'll kill him!"

III

"Richard's gonna visit, Richards gonna visit..."

IShut-up, shut-up, shut-up..I. Jack'll kill me if she finds out I'm here. Shit, Coli's mom'll hold me down while Jack does it!

"Richard's gonna visit, Richard's gonna visit!"

IShut up, shut up, shut up shut-I

"What's all the noise about?"

Fuck!

Standing in the doorway of the house, a short, red headed woman has her hands folded over her chest, tapping her foot expectantly. She hasn't seen me, thankfully. I'd chased Coli across the street, and hadn't started back when the kid had. I quickly vanished behind one of the plants in the garden I was in, and waited there until Coli had run up to her mom.

"Richard's gonna come visit me, mommy!" She squeals and I shrink further into the shrubs.

"Richard? Who's he?" She asks.

"My friend," she tells her mom. "He brought me home two days ago and he came to play again today!"

Kids. Have a certain way of making everything sound like they got it right, don't they? Even when there's nothin further from the truth.

"Where is this friend of yours then?" She asks.

Coli looks around and I duck my head down. I can't let her spot me, because I know that if she does, I'm busted.

"He's was here a minute ago," she sticks her lip put again and her mom laughs, pickin her up and carryin her back inside.

"I'm sure he was sweetie," the mom tells her.

Great. Mommy dearest thinks I'm an imaginary friend.

A few seconds later, mother and daughter are back inside the house, and I'm coastin quite happily down the street, towards my original location of Serenity Park.

"Where the fuck do you think you're goin!"

Suddenly, an arm reaches out from the boyfriends' front garden, grabs my shirt and pulls me inside. The pure fuckin shock of it is enough to drop me, just for a moment. I know that I don't have worry too much about lettin myself get dropped, cause I know I'm strong enough to get myself back up again.

Within seconds, I'm down and pinned with speed I ain't fuckin accustomed to. I'm about to grab for where the throat should be, before I catch a whiff of something familiar.

Dadanian roots.

Jack.

Cold, hard metal presses under my jaw and heavy weight pins me to the grass.

"I ain't done with you," she growls. "What are you doing here?"

I grin up at her, innocent as you like, and reply "Bein sat on and threatened with my own shiv."

"My shiv, IRichardI." She reminds me.

I shrug...best I can with fourteen stone of teenage killin machine trained by my own hand sat on my arms.

"My old one. And seriously, kid, that name? Punishment enough."

He anger drains quickly, like it always does, and she swings off of me. I sit up, rubbing feelin back into my dead arms as she waves her shiv at me again.

"What are you doin' here?" She asks. "Spying on me?"

"Not quite," I tell her. "Didn't you hear the commotion next door? I made a friend."

She takes a mock swing at my head. "I'm sure that's completely coincidental."

I finally notice the nervy kid behind her.

"Your boyfriend?" I ask.

"Your foster dad?" The kid asks, damn near shittin himself. Yeah, he recognizes me.

"Oh, I'm your foster dad now, am I?"

She shrugs, innocent as you like, and tells me "It's shorter than 'escaped-convict-who-took-me-in-and-is-the-only-family-I-have-and-trained-me-and-kept-me-fed-and-clothed-for-the-last-five-years-but-still-insists-he's-not-my-foster-father'."

I quirk my head a bit. "Point."

"And yes, Damian," she tells him. "He is."

Poor kid looks about to feint.

"N-nice to meet you." He tells me, holding out a hand.

I look at Jack, IYou ain't seriousIlike, and she gestures with her shiv towards my crown jewels.

I take the kids hand and shake it. Soaked to the bone with sweat. Yeah, he's shittin himself.

"Wow, Jack, figured you'd pick a boyfriend...not a girlfriend."

I wait for Jack to come out with somethin, but it's actually the boyfriend who does it.

"And I though I was meeting Jack's foster father, not mother."

Well, would ya listen to that? Not a hint of fear.

"Skittish to guts, kid," I grin. "Gotta love that. Here, Jack, remember when you did that?"

She turns pink and I gotta laugh at the kid. She knows I'm talkin about T2, when she wanted so much to be like me, but couldn't quite stop bein like her. Skittish as you please, but hiding it behind false bravado and attitude which wasn't hers. One of the first things I liked about her.

"Keep yourself and Jack out of trouble and I think we'll get along fine," I tell the kid...Damian, right?

"Now Iyou,I" I snap at Jack, "have some explaining to do."