A/N: Hey lads – I know this is up early, but I won't be here tonight to post. So you get this approximately 12 hours early, aren't you happy? Be happy! I command you. We're edging closer and closer to chapter 10, which is as far as I've written at the moment, but from the way things look now, we'll probably get there just as school starts, so I wouldn't have time to write, even if I didn't have writer's block. Which I do. It's all planned and written out, but every time I re-write it, I lose the paper. Augh.
Riddick stood still in the darkness for a moment, listening to his heavy breathing and the soft trickling of Sword Boy's blood on the pavement. They needed to get away, he needed his injury bandaged, and he didn't want Jack here when the lights came on. But for some reason, he couldn't make himself move just yet.
"Riddick?" Jack called hesitantly – her voice shook only a tiny bit.
He looked over towards her – she was unknowingly standing mere inches away from two corpses, with her arms wrapped tight around her body. "Yeah, I'm here." He called.
She nodded. "I know. Just needed to hear you say it. Are…are you all right?"
Unable to help it, he laughed tiredly. "Yeah, Jack. I'm fine." Feeling about a million years old, he began to trudge towards her.
"But…but you got slashed when I distracted you! Shit, I'm so sorry Riddick. I didn't mean to interfere, I just wanted to help! I swear I wasn't going to do anything too stupi-"
"Jack, shut up." Riddick interrupted gruffly. "It wasn't your fault – I gave him the opportunity to hurt me, and he did. It's not bad, don't freak out on me."
"But-"
"Jack."Jack blinked furiously, trying to hold back the tears that were threatening to spill over her eyelids. She was such a wimp – letting the guy with the sword sneak up on her, messing up Riddick in the fight, now babbling and crying. She heard the deliberate scuff of Riddick's boot on the pavement, and felt his presence at her back, but didn't turn. Didn't want him to see her like this.
Just as she was finally mastering her tears, he touched her hesitantly on the shoulder, and she nearly broke down. She could sense him edging around her so he could see her face, but didn't even try to hide it anymore. Just stared fixedly at the ground – or where she supposed the ground would be if she had been able to see it in the dark.
For a moment, they both stood there, silent, awkward. Then Riddick called quietly, "Jack…"
She darted forward and grabbed him fiercely around the middle, burying her face in his chest, not caring about the sweat soaking his shirt, or her smeared make-up. He stiffened at first, but then his arms wrapped hesitantly around her shoulders. And they rested there for a moment – Jack didn't cry, just trembled slightly and squeezed her eyes closed.
"You did good, Jack." Riddick murmured, stroking her neck lightly.
She shivered and turned her head further into his coat.
Then – almost reluctantly – he pulled away. "Come on, I don't want us to be here when the fuzz decides to show up."
Nodding, she let him guide her down the street – not asking what it was they had to weave around.
"Jack…" Riddick said quietly when they finally reached the next street light, several hundred metres down the street. "I'm sorry you had to see all that stuff back there. I…that's what I do. I wish you hadn't seen it, that's not anything you need to know about."
She looked up at him with those old woman's eyes. "It's not like I didn't see it on The Planet. It's not like I've never seen a dead body. It's not like I've never seen you kill someone – well not actually doing it, but I can remember what happened to Johns."
Shit. Riddick closed his eyes. He did not need to be reminded of that, and he didn't like to think that the kid remembered it as well. "Look, Johns was…well, he deserved what he got."
"I know he wanted to kill me, Riddick. I'm not stupid."
He blinked. She knows? Damn, that must be hard to live with. He looked down at her face with its smeared make-up and the drying blood on her neck. "Are you okay?"
She smiled and raised an eyebrow. "I'm fine. You're the one who got slashed by some fucker with a sword!" She reached for his duster, but her hands froze halfway there. They were smeared with blood. She looked down at her coat – the front was soaked. Confused, she pressed her stomach, and found it still in one piece. Suddenly, her eyes grew wide and she threw open Riddick's coat.
There was a slash across his ribs running from his breastbone down across his ribs, and it was still sluggishly pumping blood. "Fuck, Riddick!" she shrieked, tearing off her coat and wadding it against the wound. "Couldn't have bothered to staunch the blood or anything, huh? Dammit, how ironic would it be if you beat all those guys and then died?"
He grinned down at her. "Hell, I don't need to worry about myself – I've got you to do it for me."
She flipped him off, but continued to flutter around him anxiously. "This is all my fault –youaren'tgonna die or something,are you?"
Riddick gently drew back from her hands, holding her coat against the slash himself. "Look, we went over this. You were just trying to help, and I let myself be distracted. I would have gotten hurt sooner or later anyway. I'll be fine – it's not deep." He folded his duster back over his front again, keeping one hand inside it to keep the pressure on the wound. As they began to walk again, Riddick slugged her lightly in the shoulder. "And besides, you more than made up for it by keeping the street dark. Can't believe I didn't think of turning off the laztiks…" he muttered.
She chuckled shakily. "Guess you're human after all."
He smiled. "Damn."
When Riddick stepped into the hospital waiting room, he found Jack asleep in an uncomfortable chair, a fresh white bandage across her neck. It had taken a while to get his wound stitched – the doctor on call had been dealing with some guy with a crushed foot and he had been stuck waiting in the examining room for ages.
He smiled down at Jack for a while, then realized what a fool he looked like and wiped the idiotic grin off his face, before approaching the receptionist. "Rick Northman and Kyra Fry, please."
Rick Northman was his legal alias, and as the receptionist typed in their details, she looked at him curiously. "Is Ms. Fry under eighteen?"
Riddick nodded. "Yeah, but her legal guardian is off-planet at a conference, so I'm watching her for the week."
"How are you related to Ms. Fry?" the woman asked.
He sighed. "I live with her and Abu al-Walid. He's her guardian, and I'm friends with both of them."
The receptionist typed the information obligingly into the computer. "Can I see identification and proof of residence?"
Riddick dug out his wallet – it was amazingly still in his back pocket – and handed her the necessary papers.
"And what were the causes of Ms. Fry's and your injuries?"
"Some guys tried to mug us."
The receptionist nodded. "All right, the treatment cost comes to 74.13. I'm assuming you're paying by insurance?"
"Actually, can I pay with a cred card?"
The woman actually blinked at him silently for a moment. "You want to pay? You have that much on you?"
He grinned inwardly. "Why do you think we were mugged?"
The receptionist huffed, but nodded, and processed his card quickly. "Just sign here, and here…Yes, thank you. You'll need to come in and have those stitches taken out in a week – will the 13th work for you? Around 11 o'clock? All right, I'll pencil you in. Thank you very much."
Riddick nodded and replaced his wallet before turning to Jack. He hated to wake her – it was 12:16 in the morning, and she still had school. But he couldn't carry her with stitches across his chest. Maybe he'd take her in to school late. "Jack…" he called, shaking her lightly.
Immediately she was awake. "I wasn't sleeping. Just resting my eyes – I'm wide awake!"
He grinned at her. "Yeah, whatever. Come on, we'll take a hov-cab home. I'll take you into school late so you can sleep in."
She smiled up at him. "Did I ever tell you that you're the best babysitter ever? I mean aside from the killing and the injuries and all that."
"Some recommendation." He muttered, but couldn't keep a tiny smile off his face.
After getting Jack settled in bed, Riddick headed for his room but ended up in the study, staring at the piles of notes he had accumulated. He did have a lot of money – enough to buy out Imam's whole neighborhood, with enough left over to renovate Jack's school, or pay for her tuition at one of the good boarding schools on the satellites orbiting around Helion Prime.
Now there was a thought. He didn't need much to subsist on – his money had nearly doubled because he had left it untouched in his accounts for so long that the interest was astronomical. He could easily convert all but perhaps one of his accounts to Imam and Jack, and still be living as comfortably as a convict on the run ever did.
This idea intrigued him so much that he forbore sleep to sit at the desk for another two hours, rearranging his accounts and moving funds around. When he finally turned out the light and headed for his room, he had most of his holdings ready to transfer to Imam's account the minute he had to leave.
As good as it felt to know he could help and provide for his friends, the thought of leaving them to do it weighed heavily on his shoulders. Riddick didn't fall sleep for a long time.
"Jack?" Riddick murmured, shaking her shoulder lightly. "Wake up, kid."
The girl groaned and turned to face him, before wincing and putting a hand to her neck. "Augh…"
He grinned. "Thought you might say that. It's 10:15 – figured you might want breakfast before school."
She blinked. "Yeah…breakfast." Wiping a hand over her face, she wrinkled her nose. "Just lemme get a bit cleaned up first, 'kay? I'll be down in a bit."
Riddick nodded and left her, wincing slightly on the stairs – the stitches pulled with the oddest movements. In the kitchen, he actually managed to find some food that was generally put in the breakfast category, and threw it together in a somewhat more orderly fashion than the day before. A teeny bit of pride prickled in his head – he was getting good at this cooking thing!
When Jack stumbled down the stairs – hair dripping and wearing one of Riddick's shirts – there was a bowl of museli, fruit, yogurt, with a bit of brown powder sprinkled on top waiting for her. She smiled and flopped into her seat, immediately digging in. "Wuff dif bown fuf?"
Riddick raised an eyebrow.
Glaring, she chewed for a moment, swallowed, then tried again. "I said, what's this brown stuff?"
"Wheat germ. It's good for you."
She rolled her eyes. "Whatever. How'd you sleep?"
With a shrug, Riddick set a steaming mug of coffee in front of her. "Fine."
Jack treated him to a shrewd look – raised eyebrows and all. "Right. Whatever. Slept like a log, myself."
He nodded and sipped his own tea.
After munching through her breakfast for a bit, she paused and glanced up at him leaning against the counter. He was back to his old Riddickness, calm and cool, and never up to shouldering any conversational burdens.
Despite the grisly attack, Jack had enjoyed last night – a Riddick that was willing to talk was not something to be taken for granted. It's unfair that the only time he opens up and talks is when he's a bit buzzed, she grumbled to herself.
This could not go on. She decided that she would bring him out of his shell and into the world of voluntary conversation, human interaction, and visible emotion.
"So do I get a home-made lunch again today from the master chef?"
He shrugged into his tea. "If you want it."
This would be harder than she thought. "Good, because whatever you made me was really good! I even shared a bit of it with Tad – he liked it too! Said that if I bring him some today, he'll give me some of his mom's triple-thick-four-layer-raspberry-lemon-orange-chocolate-fudge-and-cookie cake."
Riddick's eyebrow raised. "Tad?"
Nonchalantly, Jack took another bite of museli. "Oh, just this guy from school."
"Just what guy?"
She squashed her smile before it reached her lips. "Chill, Riddick. It's not like he's my boyfriend or anything. We're not really even friends. I partnered him one day in PE, and we beat all the other teams, so he at least gives me a nod in the hall."
Riddick's eyes remained narrowed. "If he's just some guy, why were you sharing your lunches?"
A tiny snicker crept out, but she covered it in a fit of coughing. "Well Hans triple-dog-dared Tad to try a bit of my lunch – because it looked weird, you know. They expected it to be really bad, and Tad acted like it was disgusting." Seeing Riddick's frown deepening, she added, "but he came up to me later and told me that it was actually really good, and that he wanted more."
After a moment of silent glowering, he sighed. "Do you like this Tad guy?"
Jack shrugged. "He's nice enough I guess – probably about the closest thing I have to a friend." She waited until he relaxed a bit, then added as an afterthought, "He's cute too."
She had to laugh at the pissed look on Riddick's face. It really was too funny. "Just kidding. Well, not about Tad being cute, but he's so far out of my league it doesn't make a difference."
Riddick set his now empty mug down, and began moving around the kitchen, gathering ingredients for another of his concoctions. "Whadda you mean, out of your league?"
Jack sighed, and buried her face in her own coffee for a moment. "I mean," she mumbled through the steaming liquid, "that he's smart and popular and cute, and I'm, well…not."
With a snort, Riddick sent her a deliberate raised eyebrow. "Don't be so modest, Jack. When you've got it, flaunt it."
She shook her head. "No, I mean, look at me. I'm like the antithesis of good little popular girls. Remember how we were talking about why I can't gain any weight? Well I've got so many of those marks against me that they've made a wall between me and all the people like Tad. They don't like scruffy tomboy troublemakers. If I gained that weight from the pizza, I doubt Tad would even acknowledge me in the halls."
Riddick threw together a mixture of odd ingredients and popped it between some bread and into the toaster. "He sounds like a great guy."
Jack tipped her head wryly. "That's more than I get from most kids, even now." She scraped the last remnants of her breakfast from the bowl and carried her dishes to the sink. "I'll be ready to go in a few minutes, just let me get dressed."
He nodded, not looking up from her lunch preparations. When he heard her footsteps retreat into the hall, he shook his head. "Fucking glad I'm not in school anymore…"
A/N: All right, what did everyone think? I tried to be vague about the money thing, since they don't mention it in the movies (that I remember).
And a HUGE thank you to all my lovely reviewers: shamrock920 (thanks, you're so sweet!), njrd, FluidDegree, buecha, mynee (I'm glad you liked my choices of weapons!), Death By Teacup, Social Control, blade assassin (um, running? Me? Are you kidding? That would require me to get off my arse), WindDancerTN (you're such a sweetheart! Your review made my day – I wuv you!), and unknown (um…heh).
You too can get your own shout-out, all you have to do is review! It's very easy, takes only two seconds, it's free, and you don't get spam or viruses. Pwease? When I post the next chapter, I'll be in the US. Eek.
Cheers,
Rama