Summery – Riddick and Jack face some truths

AN – THANKYOUSOMUCH to everyone who reviewed! I got this chapter up just for you!

AN2 – Just for the records, I don't like this chapter. I can't put my finger on what it is - it just doesn't…work. Grr! Anyone out there ever written the chapter and liked the idea, but hated the way you wrote it? I done that. And it is really REALLY annoying!

Disclaimers – Own Riddick? YES PLEASE!

Deds – To all my reviewers! Mwuah! Mwuah!

Chapter 4

"Yeeee!" Koli shrieks. "Richard's come to visit again!"

See, this works great. Jack goes to see Damian, I go to see Koli, and I spy on Damian and Jack while I'm at it. This is the way we've been workin for the last four weeks. The only problems are that I can't do too much spyin because of problem two, Jack knows what I'm doin' and is always sure to keep out of sight and problem three is the ever present threat of Coli tellin her mom. At least the daft woman still thinks I don't exist. That's some consolation.

But then there's problem four.

Koli's kinda…growin on me.

Fuck you, I ain't goin soft. It's just…I guess kids don't see people like me the way everyone else does. She doesn't know me, she doesn't understand what I've done. So she doesn't fear me. I can start over around her, just for a while. Just until she learns who I really am.

I know the day'll come sooner or later when I'll stop visitin, when I stop pullin bull shit excuses about spyin on Jack. I even know that I'm breaking my ever precious rule of not letting anyone in.

But it's almost worth it…to know what it's like to be treat by just another man.

"So what's it like?" Damian asks, completely out of the blue I assure you.

"What's what like?"

"Living with Riddick, of course." Oh. Right. Time for that conversation, huh?

I shrug and answer as honest as I can.

"Like livin with a hell hound."

Damian snorts, obviously thinkin I'm tryin to pull a joke.

"I'm serious, he stinks, he growls, he never gets out of bed, he snaps, he's bloody vicious, and you do not want him takin a swipe at you."

I don't think Damian knows whether to laugh or start bowing down to me for sayin that about Riddick. In fact, I'm pretty sure I saw that look somewhere else once…oh yeah, Paris, back on T2. Stupid dude was so funny…'Shazza, get off my booze…Zeke, get off my booze…Fry, get off my booze…Riddick- err…would you like some crackers with your drink, Mr. Riddick?'

"He's loyal as a hound, though. Protective…and he's cuddly as a teddy bear once you get to know him."

I'm pretty sure Damian thinks I've lost my mind.

"You know, my mom used to work for the authorities, helping them track the moves of killers and criminals who went on the run. She was a criminologist, so she used to looks for clues…stuff like that. Riddick was one of her cases just after he left the military."

Wow. Attention needs to be paid to this, thinks I.

"She let me use her old case files for practise," he tells me. "Cause I want to be a criminologist too, some day. It always did fascinate me…"

'You've seen Riddicks file?" I ask. I mean, hey, yeah, I'm curios. His first kill I know about, and the rest I got the short version. But I never really got to find out what everyone else thought of him.

"Yeah," Damian tells me, jumping up to pull a box out from under some clothes piled in his wardrobe. "Here's all the old case files I used to use."

He opens the box and finds Riddicks' easily…it's several times larger than the rest.

"The thing that puzzles everyone the most is that he just sorta…appeared. You know Richard B. Riddick isn't his real name, right?"

"Richard after the boyfriend, so I never forget why I am who I am. The rest is from my foster-sister. Brenna Riddick."

I nodded and looked away, trying to absorb what I was hearing

Suddenly, I realised something

"You're middle name's Brenna!"

"Brendon, if anyone has to know." He told me defensively. "But yea. Sorta secretly."

"Sweet."

"I just knew that when she died, she'd be forgotten. Sent to a mass-grave planet and given a number. Another kid no one wanted. Calling myself Richard B. Riddick was a way of making sure she'd never be forgotton...and neither would her killer."

"Yeah," I tell him. "I know."

"Well, the truth is that no one knows what his name was. The earliest we can find is when he joined the military in the Jekovian system when he was seventeen. 'Next-of-Kin' was left blank, his home world was marked 'Unknown'…" he pauses for a minute and looks at me. "Don't suppose you know anything, do you?"

Plenty, mate.

"No," I tell him simply. "I don't."

He sets the file back into the box and slides the box under his bed. He sits back in the silence, probably knowing he's walking on eggshells and not knowing what to say next.

"You never did answer my question."

I turn back towards him.

"Hmm?"

"What's it like living with him?"

I sigh…I'm pretty sure I told him this one already…

"Told you. Hellhound."

"No," he argues, "seriously."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. I mean, why did he take you in? Mr. Badass of the universe doesn't strike me as the kind to start a family."

Wow, questions. I hate those.

"He doesn't want the responsibility of a daughter, I don't want the oppression of a father. He doesn't have enough faith in his own abilities, at least not where paternal shit's involved, and I brought myself up for far too many years to want a father." I pause, suddenly realising that while those points were true, they were irrelevant. Why did he take me in? "I guess he needed a kid that he didn't need to do everything for, and I needed a father figure who wouldn't try to do everything for me. We were both just what the other needed."

He shrugs and sits back, probably doing that weird processing thing he does. I think it's 'cause he tries to criminologize everything.

"Why did Riddick become a killer?"

Yeah, I was right.

"I can't tell you." I say eventually.

"Why not?"

I slide my sun-glasses down over my eyes before I turn back to look at Damian.

"S'not my secret to tell."

"Wanna know a secret?"

Koli seems to me to be completely incapable of shuttin' up for more than four seconds. We're sat in she shadows of some trees around the side of the Tranquility Park, and she's throwing seeds or somethin' at the shadows as they move. One of those games only a kid could find fun, I guess.

"Sure," I tell her, still watching Damian's house while Koli plays.

"Sally likes you."

Sally…the kids' doll that I gave her. Jacks' idea…I think she just wanted to see me have to carry the damn thing under my arm. And it didn't really help my attempts to make Koli not like me.

"Really?" I ask, uninterested.

"Mmmhmm," Koli hums. "She says you're nice 'cause you're nice to me."

S'not like I have the choice, kid.

"Sounds fair enough."

Koli sits in silence a while…well, as long as is possible for her, which is an average of about a second, second and a half if I get lucky.

"Wanna know another secret?"

I sigh and turn to look at Koli. It's not like I'll see Jack…or anything else…anyway.

"What?"

"Sally likes Jackie, too."

Ha. Jackie…Koli's rather adorable nick-name for Jack, which only really manages to piss her off. Nice revenge though for her lying to me.

"Yeah, well, Jackie's a good kid."

I gotta admit, I'm kinda proud of Jack. She's lived with me for three years, and she's still sane.

"Richaaaaard?"

I'm not gonna like this question too much, am I?

"Yeah, kid?"

"Is Jackie your daughter?"

At that I almost have to laugh.

"No, Koli," I tell her. "She's…"

What?

I guess it never mattered before, but suddenly, I wanna know. What the fuck is she? She's not my daughter, not my foster-daughter even. She's not my sister, not really like any family. But she's not just a friend either. And we're not…like that.

Not family…not friends…not lovers...

What does that leave?

"I'm not sure. We just get along."

"Like you and me get along?"

I smile at the kid and nod.

"Yeah, Koli, like we get along."

Koli nods, apparently accepting my answers, and starts throwing tiny stones at the shadows again.