Darkness, Be My Friend

Chapter Ten : Trust in Tomorrow

She was sitting very still on the bunk in the med cabin, holding her shirt up over her stomach and watching with rapt attention as Riddick removed the stitches in her side; he wondered if there was anything at all that she wasn't curious about. It didn't take very long to remove them and when he was done there was a faintly pink scar about an inch long on her left side, the only remaining evidence that she'd been injured at all. He started putting away the medbox, watching out of the corner of his eye as she traced the scar with one finger; she looked back up at him after a moment and smiled.

"Battle scar," she said and he let out a low laugh, shaking his head.

On the inside, however, he wasn't laughing; she'd gotten that scar because of him, its presence there was a reminder of that. Jack stopped examining it and looked up at him, smile widening as she dropped her shirt and hopped off the bunk; her current clothes were assembled from various things she must have found searching through the other cabins. The shirt was two sizes too big for her, on side of it drooping low on her shoulder, and her pants were held up by a belt that looped almost twice around her waist, the cuffs rolled up a dozen or so times to keep them from dragging.

In the past few days the girl had opened up more, acting a lot like the curious kid she was; she still wasn't asking any questions about him, but she had showed that she was interested in more than just learning about computers. She wanted to pilot, hack, and learn how to fight all at once; the latter he'd refused to teach so long as she still had the stitches and he had postponed removing them for her as long as possible. It wasn't that he couldn't teach her, hell, he'd felt rather smug at first when she'd asked him, but then he had gone on to think about it; the problem was that he could teach her and what then?

Keep teaching her, the more she's gonna want to stay...say no, and she'll stop smiling...what the fuck is happening? Why the hell do I care if she smiles or not, its not my fucking problem...

But it was his problem, the cause of the continuing conflict in his mind; that smile was addicting, he'd found himself doing things just to see that smile there on her face. The day before he'd actually decided to cook something instead of eating just whatever he could find in the fridge and he'd made enough for her too for some reason; she had never looked happier than right then, grinning broadly. She'd again said thank you, tone just as distinctly genuine as the last two times she had spoken the word; it was the first time they'd eaten a meal together since she'd woken up.

Riddick looked down at Jack, taking in that smile, trying to decipher the whirlwind in his mind; he liked her, there was no doubt about that, she was smart and quite possibly the first person he'd ever met that actually listened to what he had to say. He thought back to their conversation earlier that week, how much he'd wanted to kill her brother after she'd told him about the foster home she'd been dumped at; even now it pissed him off, but it made him realize that he'd grown protective of her in this short time. Turning away, he walked out the door and into the hall; he didn't need to check and see if she would follow, he already knew the answer to that.

The lights were on, but since he'd changed the settings they weren't above level 25; comfortable enough light for his eyes and, apparently, light enough for the girl to see by. He'd taken to wearing his goggles less and less, trying to get her to ask about his eyes; he could see her curiosity every single time she looked at him, but she never voiced it. She kept silent on the inquiries he knew were there and it almost annoyed him; why shouldn't she ask questions about him, he'd gone prying into her past so why shouldn't she pry into his?

He stopped suddenly in the middle of the hall, an action that startled Jack; she nearly ran into him, abandoning her attempts to walk silently just to avoid running into his back. Her bare feet stumbled on the metal floor with a soft thump as she struggled to keep her balance; Riddick would have laughed if it were funny. She was trying hard to be as quiet as he was, had so obviously chosen him to be her idol, and that was nothing to laugh at.

"How old are you, Jack?" he asked, not turning around; he could hear her shifting her feet on the floor behind him, either debating the question or actually forcing herself to think on the answer.

"Almost thirteen," she answered after a moment. "Why?"

"How old was your brother?" Riddick asked, ignoring her question; he'd answer that after he got done asking himself why it mattered.

"He was nine years older than me," Jack responded, a nervous twinge attaching itself to her voice; her brother, he knew, was more than likely a sore subject. There were several half-thought through plans of killing the fuckhead running through his mind, all of which involved causing a considerable amount of pain. He growled low in his throat and continued on walking, passing through the door into the galley; the girl still followed him, a fearfully worrisome expression on her face. "Are you mad at me?"

What the fuck?

"No," he answered, wondering what the hell had given her that impression. Her face didn't change as she nodded, turning away to go sit on the small couch at the other side of the room; she fell back against it, pulling her knees up to her chest, carefully avoiding his gaze. Riddick frowned at this; in one moment she'd gone from smiling to looking rather sad, it both bothered and annoyed him. "Should I be mad at you?"

"I don't know," she said, taking in a deep breath. "It's just...you sounded mad."

He stared at her, realizing now that she must have mistaken the tone in his earlier questions for anger; now that he thought about it, it must have been hard to tell the difference based just on his voice. He was used to speaking roughly to anyone and everyone he encountered; it was a habit gained from existing in the darker places of the universe where having a 'don't fuck with me' tone of voice was essential to survival. Jack didn't know this, though, apparently she thought that the rumbling edge that latched on to his words meant something was wrong.

"Not mad at you, kid," Riddick told her, shaking his head; she warily looked over at him.

"You're not?" she asked carefully.

"I am fucking pissed off at your brother, but not you kid," he informed her, pleased to see a faint smile on her face; she looked relieved. Leaning against the wall, Riddick stared at her; she didn't look as skinny as she had when he'd first seen her, nearly two weeks of a steady supply of food had done her good. She still was scrawny, the over-sized clothes not helping in that aspect, but she no longer held the look of a half-starved waif. "Still want to learn how to fight?"

Jack look surprised for a moment and then her smile widened into a grin as she nodded her head; she jumped up from the couch with a little more bounce than usual.

"See that pipe right above your head?"

She immediately looked up; there was, indeed, a metal pipe suspended just a couple dozen centimeters away from the ceiling. It was a coolant pipe for one of the computer back-up generators and it was secured every half meter by thick metal brackets; the pipe itself ran the length of the ship, it was only in the kitchen that there was enough room for it to actually stand out. Riddick had tested his weight on it the night before, having been unable to sleep with nothing to do; he had finished the fake IDs as well as anything else he could think of that would help with the stop off in Dulroon.

"Do pull-ups."

Jack stared at the pipe; it was good two and a half feet about her head, she'd half to jump off the edge of the couch just to reach it. Not saying a word, she did just that, catching the bar with a grunt and hoisting herself up; she hung there for a moment, looking across the room at Riddick.

"How many?" she asked of him.

"As many as it takes till I say stop," he answered evenly; Jack nodded and took a deep breath before focusing on the make-shift bar.

She hefted herself up, tucking her chin over the pipe before lower herself back down; the second one was harder, as were the third and fourth, but she was dead set on this. If she learned how to fight and got strong enough, then she wouldn't have to worry so much about getting hurt for looking like a girl. Her elbows were getting stuck in her sleeves every time she tried to pull herself up, but she didn't do anything about it; what if she fell or did something equally stupid while trying to fix them?

Not gonna fall…

Grunting, she pulled herself up again and again, trying to estimate how many she'd done so far and just how long it had been since she'd started; her arms were starting to hurt.

Maybe twenty…twenty-five...

Her palms were beginning to get sweaty and the outside of her left ear had a small itch tickling it; she paused, rubbing her ear against the inside of her arm to get rid of the annoyance before going on.

Thirty-something…hey, where'd he go?

Again, Jack paused, for Riddick had apparently left the room; a wave of confusion swept over her, wasn't he going to make sure she kept on doing pull-ups? For a second she debated stopping, then realized that this was probably some kind of test; if she stopped, she failed, so she kept on going. Just when her arms felt like they were going to fall off, he came back into the room, his goggles on now and what may have passed for a slightly amused look on his face. He stood just inside the door and Jack didn't dare stop unless he said something; she struggled through three more, gritting her teeth as he watched.

"You can stop now."

She lowered herself, then dropped the two feet to the floor, stumbling slightly but not falling; the muscles in her arms were burning and she was out of breath. That amused look was still on Riddick's face when she looked back up at him; she was thirsty and a little hungry now, but she wasn't going to tell him that. He seemed to know anyways, and nodded towards the galley; Jack managed a smile and walked over, quickly getting out a cup from one of the cupboards and filling it in the sink.

She drank the water slowly, knowing that to down it fast was to inflict upon herself a stomach ache. When the last drop of water was gone, she set the cup down on the counter and looked back over at Riddick; pull-ups could not be the only thing.

"What now?" she asked of him, her breathing almost returned to normal now.

"Sit ups," he responded, tilting his head to the side.

"How many?" Jack inquired, walking over to the space between the galley and the couch; he gave her a look, the amused expression turning into an actual smile.

"As many as it takes till I say stop," he told her in the same even tone as before.

The ship's systems were just rotating into the quiet hum of the internal night cycle; there was a star outside the cockpit window that was steadily getting brighter. Riddick threw it a glance before leaving the pilot's chair; he stretched, cracked his neck, then started towards the door with a vague idea of maybe being able to get to sleep. That's when he noticed the girl; she had fallen asleep across the table, exhausted from everything, the dinner she had scrounged from the fridge lying half-eaten next to her. She had spent nearly the whole day doing every exercise he'd told her to do; her muscles had to be burning from the exertion, but she had never complained, not once.

Jack looked completely innocent right then, her face holding a peaceful expression and her short hair looking slightly mussed up; he stood there for a moment, just staring at her. Her eyes were moving beneath the thin skin of her eyelids in the rhythm of whatever dream was gracing her mind; shaking his head, Riddick walked over and lifted her away from the table, he knew it had to be uncomfortable sleeping like that. She weighed next to nothing in his arms as he carried her out into the hall, intending to put her in the cabin she'd made claim to; he opened the door with his foot and went to set her down on her bed, but she shifted, pressing her face into his shoulder.

One of her small hands grabbed at a fold in his shirt and he frowned, looking down at her; she was still sleeping, still dreaming, but she had curled up in his arms like it was the most natural thing in the world. He could have dropped her, but she trusted him not to, even if it was only subconsciously; he could have killed her anytime between this moment and the time he'd first pulled her out of that cryo locker, but she had trusted him not to.

She trusts...me...

Riddick sat down on the bed, still holding Jack as he thought this, frown deepening; the darkness surfaced again briefly to present its argument concerning the girl, but this time he shoved it back without a second's worth of consideration.

Been a long time since anyone's trusted me...as if anyone ever really did...but she does...

Silently, he leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes, listening to her breathe; the sleep he'd been depraved of in the past few days finally claiming him.