Hey all, I figured that it was time that I posted again, been struggling a little with this chapter and chapter 13, I can never seem to get the wording the way I want it so I figured that I'd let ya'll decide if it was alright or not instead of continuing to try and mess with it.

Hope you enjoy.

Kayla

Chapter 12: The Surface.

It would have been a lie if Jack were to say that she hadn't noticed the look of triumphant amusement that was quickly masked on Sam's face as she left the ship about a step and a half behind Riddick. A comfortable distance, close enough to use him as a shield from what she was feeling without anyone besides the two of them realizing it.

She put her sunglasses on, another barrier between her and the rest of the crew, and looked around her, on the surface she looked calm and relaxed even a little unemotional about the whole thing but inside she was anything but calm and relaxed, she was more like a nervous wreck. A nervous wreck shielded by a brick wall made of human flesh.

"Looks the same." She whispered to Riddick though she was talking more to herself then anyone else as she took a couple of steps away from him and onto the sand. She squatted down and took a handful of the sand into her fist, letting it sit there for a moment in her clenched fist as if weighing it before letting it slide through her fingers.

It felt like sand, what the hell else had she been expecting it to feel like?

"The crash site is a couple of miles from here, that way." Captain Manor was suddenly at her shoulder pointing to his left. "There's a couple of sand-buggies onboard if you want to use one to take a look around. I want the ship off this planet in eight hours; that gives you roughly seven to do what you want with."

"I dunno." She shook her head, her voice barely more then a whisper. Her hand was still resting in the sand and she knew that most of the crew would be watching her by now. She didn't care! She stood up slowly and wiped the dust from the sand off her hands, seeing memories clearer then she ever wanted to see them again but knowing that she couldn't get rid of them.

It was time to face her past, the past had got over her and it was time that she got over it, or at least she hoped that she could get over it and if not, maybe she would just be able to settle with it, make a peace agreement.

Darkness settled in on her mind, she could hear the beat of wings and the screeches and whoops. She could feel again the mind numbing fear. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply thankful that no one else was talking. It was hard to breath, just like before, she left like she had taken a nice long run and not been given the chance to catch her breath again.

A nice long run...

All of her muscles were bunched, ready to do just that if it came down to it. She was ready for just about anything at that moment as she pushed away threatening memories and was simply still. If she didn't think about it then it couldn't be as bad as her mind seemed to want to make her remember it being. At least, that was what she told herself.

If anyone found it hard to stand and let the pilot revisit her memories, with her sad frown, her small involuntary shudders, then it had to be Riddick, Candace found herself thinking. He had been there too; he would be remembering things that he probably didn't like as much as Jack didn't like them. The haunted look on her new guardian's face was just about enough to freak her out and from the tight muscles in Riddick's jaw-line, he wasn't all that happy either but he stood still so, so did she. Even she found it strange the way that she was taking her lead from him all of a sudden.

Jack turned around and walked back to the crew, her protector and newest charge. The kid looked nervous and Riddick was tense, his whole body seeming to scream caution. "You alright?" He asked her and she knew that his eyes, though concealed under his dark welding goggles had swept over her face. She nodded slowly and smiled faintly reassuring herself as much as she was him.

"Stay here and don't let Candace out of your sight?" It was a question, a request, made with a hand laid on his arm more because she needed contact with him at that moment then for any other reason and he tolerated it, her shielded eyes searching his face for that moment as she gathered strength from him.

"You're going back to The Hunter-Gratzner?" He didn't look happy as he turned his head to follow her movements.

"I think so." She nodded again but the movement wasn't as sure and defined as before, like she had no idea if it was the right thing to do or not.

"Then leave the kid with Sam, you're not going back there alone." It was final; she knew it was but the stubborn streak in her made her argue back.

"Sam's got a job to do; she can't be saddled with a kid doing that job. Make sure she doesn't get herself in any trouble Riddick? Please?"

"Now that we're here I have a job to do too, you're more likely to get your ass into trouble on this planet then she is." He said the tone of his voice and the look on his face making it clear that his stance wasn't going to be changed by her arguments. "Leave her with Sam."

After a moment or two of a standoffish sort of silence she backed down and nodded; glad to be honest that he didn't agree to her request but not sure that Sam was the best person to be leaving Candace with. Sam was known to get distracted when she was working and either Candace would be the distraction or she would forget about the teenager completely.

"Don't worry about Candace; she'll keep me company while I deal with whatever I have to deal with." Sam said putting an end to her worry about the teenager. "After all, you said that they didn't come out in the light."

"Alright." She nodded knowing she was out numbered in that particular argument. "Just because those things don't come out into the light doesn't mean that they aren't still dangerous, you have to make sure you stay in the light." Jack shook her head.

"Sure I couldn't just go with you guys?" Candace looked at the pilot pleadingly though she knew that she was more likely to get an okay from Riddick then Jack. The idea of tagging along with the security officer after having avoided her and gone out of bounds so often really wasn't all that appealing to her. For all she knew, Sam could have it against her for all the trouble she had caused.

"No!" Riddick and Jack turned and looked at her, saying the words at the same time and making Sam laugh.

"You sure that you guys can't read each other's minds?" Sam asked with a shake of her head.

"She has a gun Sam and she knows how to use the thing. Please leave her armed." Jack shook her head in acknowledgement of what Sam had said before going back inside The Aurora, Riddick following closely behind her.

A little under ten minutes later Jack was sitting shotgun in the four person sand-buggy that Riddick was driving across the sand, away from The Aurora and closer and closer to the crashed ship, The Hunter-Gratzner. It was hard to believe that as a fifteen year old she had had no direction and now, gods, she was a pilot on a huge cargo ship and she had Riddick. The crash had given her all of that, as much as she hated it, she understood that fact.

She looked over at her stony faced companion and frowned slightly. Things would have been so different for them both if The Hunter-Gratzner hadn't crashed. Riddick would either be in Slam or on the run from mercs like he was now but he would never have gotten to know her or Imam, never joined the human race again. She on the other hand would probably have jumped around foster homes and orphanages for three years before being set loose on the world. That or become one of the known universe's many runaways, running had been in her plan from before they even put her on the ship in the first place.

Had things worked out for the best?

"Do you ever regret it?" She found herself asking Riddick.

"What?"

"Getting saddled with a fifteen year old girl who got you into more trouble then she was worth." Jack clarified.

"Is that your assessment of the situation? That you were more trouble then you were worth?"

"Well it's the truth isn't it?" She looked over at him and raised her eyebrows in question but Riddick didn't answer. She hadn't honestly expected him to. "I mean, I almost got you caught or killed on more then one occasion between the age of fifteen and twenty."

"Only three times." He shrugged as if it didn't matter at all.

"Yeah, three times too many and the last time you almost died." She looked away from him again and out over the rolling sand dunes.

"You want to talk about this now?"

"I was just thinking about what would have happened to us if we hadn't crashed here all those damned years ago. What would have happened to everyone." She said as she saw sunlight glint off metal in the distance. "Things would have been so different and not only for me."

"What does that have to do with regrets?"

"It just does. I mean, if Imam hadn't left me with you then you would have left me with Imam. I've always figured that that would have been the case. I also know that you would have gotten away from Johns eventually and I would have been sent into foster care or more likely would have turned runaway if the ship hadn't crashed down here. Carolyn would probably be piloting a ship like The Aurora by now, Imam and his boys would have reached New Mecca and gone home, Paris would be off travailing and maybe Shazza and Zeke would have found a home somewhere." She said. "I don't have any regrets about what happened because you handed me a life but I'm wondering if you had any regrets because, in a way, I took away the life that you were used to."

"No point in bringing up the past Jack. There's no point looking at what ifs because it only makes you wish that things had happened differently." He wasn't about to swell her head and tell her that having a dependant could give you a purpose, that he had been changed in a way that wasn't particularly bad because of it.

Jack nodded. That seemed to be a clear enough reply for her. Everyone had regrets, had she thought that Riddick would be any different or that he wouldn't regret her? She shuddered.

The wreak of The Hunter-Gratzner came quickly into view and neither of them said a word as Riddick stopped the vehicle and they looked at what was left of the ship. Jack was the first to get out and take a closer look at the shattered hull of the passenger vessel. It was strange to see it again; even worse were the accompanying memories. People; Shazza, Zeke, Paris, Carolyn and the darkness and monsters. She suddenly felt quite sick.

What had Kelly called it, the first time that they had spoken about the events that had changed the course of her life?

Survivor's guilt.

Well, she was feeling that guilt rather keenly as she stood there, her green eyes travailing over the wreckage. It all looked a little older but otherwise it hadn't changed much, she could even see the solar sandkat where they had left it, obviously the crash investigators hadn't needed to move it. She wondered for a moment just how close a look that those people had actually taken at the crash sight. How much of the true story they had patched together.

Jack chewed on the inside of her lip as she moved around the ship, walking up and down the banks that the ship had made when it plowed through the sand during the crash landing, till she reached the smashed up back end, the entrance into the place where the cryo-chambers had once lined the walls. It was dark inside but she was still a good eight feet away.

Slowly she moved forward, her feet being forced to walk, step-by-step, closer to the gaping opening but before she got much closer Riddick's fingers encircled her arm and she stopped. Jack turned and looked at him for a moment as if woken up once more from her trance.

"It's dark in there." He said and let the implications in his words settle in for her. She looked up at him, her lips slightly parted as she sucked in air, her eyes wide under her sunglasses and her face slightly pale. She had been so lost in her memories, her thoughts that she hadn't even thought about the possibility that something might still be lurking in that ship.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize." He said, even he could see that she hadn't been thinking.

She nodded and licked her lip, her tongue lingering for a moment on the healing split as she took her gun from her side and made to move on again but he wasn't letting her go. Jack frowned, her brow creasing as she turned to look at him again. "What?"

"You wanna go in there?" She nodded.

"It's called closer Riddick." He let out a low, dry laugh that seemed to taper off into nowhere.

"There's no such thing as closer Jack." He said his voice sharp. "Wait here, I'll be back."

Nervous, she watched as Riddick walked into the ship and then was forced to wait. She hated waiting, hated even more the fear and uncertainty that was building up inside of her. If she had to wait much longer then she was going to chicken out! What was taking him so long anyway?

"Fuck this." She whispered and strode toward the crashed ship; her feet carried her across the warm sand and into the edge of the gapping hole with a confidence that she wasn't feeling. It was very dimly lit, almost dark, but not quite, she could still make out certain shapes sand and dust littered the floor and packed up against the sides of the ship, filling the holes in the hull and suffocating the light.

She could see the shapes of old cryo-chambers, there wasn't a lot about the ship's interior that she didn't remember clearly that wasn't there. A few things had changed, been moved by a strong and reckless source. Deep down she knew it had been one of the creatures but she didn't want to think about it, after all she had seen one of them fly out of the ship as a fifteen year old.

She tested the weight of the gun in her hand; let herself feel comforted because it was there, because she knew that in her hands it was lethal. There was a clicking noise to her left and she spun round, the gun pointed and ready to use but there was nothing there to use it on but an empty cryo-chamber and hanging tubing and wires.

Damn she was paranoid!

But at least she had a right to be.

The nameplate above the cryo-chamber had rusted and the name was now unreadable, a few feet away, laying across the floor, broken glass door still open was the cryo-chamber that she had been freed from by Zeke. There were tubes and wires everywhere, the remnants of the people that had rummaged around in the dark. It all made her think, about just how lucky they had been to get off that planet alive, but she knew that she wouldn't have made it without the protection of both Riddick and Carolyn Fry. Without Carolyn, Riddick would never have come back for her and Imam.

Jack missed her.

Before she could stop herself, she had turned on her heel and walked back outside, her breathing a little ragged as she tried to pull herself together. God, she hated memories sometimes. She shook her head to clear it before returning to the near darkness, gods, she didn't know why she went back, she didn't exactly want to but something drove her forward, that and she still had no idea where Riddick had disappeared off to. This time she went a little deeper into the bowls of the decapitated ship, slowly, one foot step at a time, always careful and cautious, the gun slightly raised as her eyes tried to adjust to the darkness.

"Don't move any closer Jack." Riddick's voice said from a few feet in front of her and to her left. She froze and let her eyes adjust to the lack of light. She could just make out his back and just in front of him was a grayish shape of a fully-grown monster. She tensed; she had just stepped into her nightmare. Even with Riddick there, it was too familiar for her to feel in the least bit comforted.

Terror gripped her as it make it's strange whooping scream. Not even the fact that Riddick was between it and her; Riddick who had killed those monsters, outsmarted them, could stop the fear from flooding her body. Flowing through her body like adrenaline. Sweat trickled slowly down her spine, between her breasts, down her neck making her hair cling to the back of her neck in an uncomfortable way and her breath caught in her throat. She could almost smell her own fear and she knew that Riddick would be able to sense it and smell it too and that only made her feel worse.

"Back slowly off." Riddick's voice told her as the creature took a tentative step away from Riddick, it's head sweeping in her direction as it made its scream again. She knew it could see her, knew that it knew exactly where she was and what she was doing and it made her want to be sick. All it had to do was rush her and it would all be over; the gun raised in her own defense would not even be fired. She could see it happening, her imagination running the exact moment of her death and it only made that fear worse.

She was not ready to die.

"I don't think that I can." The words were soft, weak and afraid as her muscles seemed to cease holding her captive on the spot where she stood.

"Move Jack now!"

The command made her move, her eyes never strayed from the creature although she could hear Riddick a few steps in front of her backing off as well. And then it was his broad back in front of her, not blocking her view of the creature but she was pretty sure that the thing would have a damn hard time seeing her though Riddick's imposing bulk. It screamed again and made a series of clicking noises. She shuddered.

The creature watched them go and then another joined it, coming up from a huge hole in the floor. "Shit!" Jack thought as she nearly fell over her own feet because she was too focused on the back of Riddick's neck to think about where her own damn feet were going and the two creatures advanced on them but his hand had reached back and gripped her t-shirt making sure that she was steady on her feet again. "Riddick?"

"Just keep moving." His words were slow and deliberate, meant to signify pace and calm.

Her feet felt like they were packed in lead as she fought the instinct that told her to turn around and run. 'They are afraid of sunlight; sunlight would kill them, run to the sunlight.' Her own voice in her head screamed. She knew that soon the creatures wouldn't be able to move any closer because of the light but she also knew that she was afraid, knew that they would stop advancing cautiously the minute that their movement was anything but slow and steady.

There was only one thing left in her mind when she finally felt the extra heat from light on her back and that was the word "RUN!" Jack spun on her heel and took off without thinking about where she was going or what she would found. All that she knew was that her feet were hitting the ground rapidly; that her arms were pumping at her sides and she was going as fast as she could possibly make herself go, maybe faster then she had ever ran before.

It had all been a mistake, a giant mistake! She should never have come back to the ship, never should have set foot on the sand, never should have come back to that planet and now she had no idea what to do so she just kept running, giving herself over to the base instinct that told her to run from danger and also told her that danger was laying just behind her, below her, all around her.

She was a fucking wreak!

Jack didn't know how long she had ran before she was finally tackled, her body twisting as she flew through the air only to land on top of Riddick in the sand. She just lay there, breathing heavily, his arms tight around her body, the sun in her eyes, on her face. She closed her eyes but made herself open them again as the image of those creatures crept back into her head. She was shaking.

"When I tell you to do something Jack, you do it." Riddick said finally after their breathing had calmed down and his arms had relaxed their grip slightly. The majority of her trembling had stopped though she still felt a little shaky.

"Don't, just don't." She said rolling off of him and standing up, moving away form him. She knew he was right behind her from the minute that she started walking toward the buggy but that didn't mean that she had to talk to him yet. She couldn't talk to him just yet, couldn't make herself form words.

"Jack!" The command in his voice made her freeze on the spot.

"I think we should go." She said her voice strained.

"Not before we talk."

"I gotta get out of here, I have to! We can talk later." She squeezed her eyes shut tight as he caught up with her and stood in front of her. She didn't want to see him, she just didn't. His arms gripped the top of her own arms and she could feel the heat resonating off of him. "I admit it alright? It was a mistake, it was all a big mistake, I made a huge fucking mistake! Can we please go now?"

"Jack?"

"What?" She said, every muscle in her body tense.

"Jack? Look at me." She shook her head and turned her head farther away from him in sheer defiance of his wishes. She didn't want to see him, not then, not when she was feeling that weak, that stupid. "Jack." His voice was insistent and quiet, all the force in his tone gone.

"What?" She said, finally opening her eyes and looking up at him but as she did a single tear escaped and slipped slowly down her cheek, her defiance gone in one terrible moment. Her expressive green eyes looked up into his face, her fear was there and obvious. She was breathing heavily and he knew that it was as much to do with the fear as the atmosphere. Just standing there admitting her own defeat was hurting her.

"It would not have gotten to you." He said slowly and carefully so that he knew that she heard his words. She nodded and slowly her breathing returned to a pace near normal and she relaxed, letting herself take a step closer to him and wrapping her arms around him.

She knew that it wasn't exactly the reaction that Riddick had been expecting because of the tightening of his muscles as she hugged him but slowly he released her arms and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. She needed him, she knew it and he knew it but she wondered if it made a real difference.

"Are you alright?" He asked. She shook her head as she started to tremble again; the fear wasn't letting go, just holding on to the edges waiting for her to put her guard down so that it could take over again.

"It was a mistake; it was all a big fucking mistake." Her words caused him to let out a low laugh that rumbled through his body, shaking her's slightly considering she still had her arms wrapped tightly around him.

"You've already said that once." He said.

"Well it's fucking true. God damn it! I've got shit for brains or something don't I? I mean, all I ever seem to do is get myself into a fucking, God damned mess!"

"You've got quite a mouth on you Jack. Ever thought about anything slightly nicer to use to emphases your words?"

"No, those words emphases nicely enough for me, thank you very much. Anyway, you're the one who taught me most of my choice vocabulary. If I remember correctly you taught me a few words quite a bit worse then those." She answered him back feeling slightly better as he laughed again. It seemed that she had a knack for making one of the most feared men in the known systems laugh and it made her smile. That was a talent that she could at least be proud of.

"They would not have gotten to you Jack. I would not have let them." She nodded her acknowledgement of his words again but she also knew why they didn't comfort her like she was sure he meant them to.

She knew that he could kill one full-grown adult, she had seen him but she remembered seeing him after he had taken on two, he had almost died them, if Carolyn hadn't gone back for him, he would have. And the fact that he would have tired to take on two again, for her, that he could have gotten himself killed... Even the thought of another person dieing because of her or for her made her shudder involuntarily.

"I don't have any regrets. Not to do with you." The words were said practically as a whisper but they had been said and they caused a smile to cross her face.

"Let's go back to the ship." She said pulling away and giving him a faint smile.

They backtracked, walking wordlessly alongside one another. His strides as always a good bit longer then hers but she kept up none the less. Keeping up with Riddick was still second nature to her so it seemed and that little thrill she had gotten from finding out that he didn't regret her was still running up and down her spine.

Gods, she really was seventeen again instead of fucking twenty-two, feeling like a kid that had just been handed millions. She even had a real smile on her face when she saw Sam and Candace pull up in a sand buggy next to where they had left their own. But that smile faded rather fast, turning into a frown of concern.

She watched as Candace jumped out and Sam followed her, both the teenager and the adult looking around the seemingly deserted remains of the ship. Jack knew that Sam would have already noted the fact that her and Riddick didn't seem to be there but then, she probably thought that they were inside instead of a couple of hundred yards or so away. The security officer wouldn't think that Jack might have done a runner that left them farther away from The Hunter-Gratzner then they had planned.

The thought made her heart skip a beat. If Sam thought that they were inside she would have no problem leading the teenager into the damned ship. She didn't understand the dangers, she didn't know what Jack knew, she didn't know that there were creatures waiting inside there for someone to make that same mistake.

"Jack?" She heard Candace's yell carried toward her but it was faint, number one the girl was yelling into the dark opening and number two she was still a good number of yards away from them not that Sam had noticed yet. Jack quickened her pace, her mouth going completely dry as the girl circled the wreck and peered curiously into the back end, calling her name again. The girl seemed to consider her options for a minute before taking a step closer, only a couple of feet from actually entering the ship.

"Shit." She said as she broke into a sprint. "Candace get away from there!" She yelled running the final few yards faster then she thought she could and pulled the sixteen year old away from the entrance to the artificial cave almost aggressively. "Never go into the dark on this planet." She growled perhaps a little too threateningly in the teenager's ear as Riddick jogged over to the sand buggy a frown on his own face.

"Jeeze!" Candace looked at her with disgust and a little bit of fear. "What the hell is up with you? You're covered in dust and acting like a fucking moron. You know all you had to do was yell, you didn't have to throw me about like that, I would have moved for myself. You don't think I have enough bruises already or something?"

"Watch your mouth kid." Sam snapped. "Why are you covered in dust Jack? I thought you'd be in there having a look around."

"That tends to happen when you get tackled in the middle of a run." Jack said dryly looking at Riddick who was loading a few old duffle bags into the back of the sand buggy. Where the hell had he got those from? The thought crossed her mind quickly before she turned her thoughts back to the reprimand that she was supposed to be giving Candace. There would be time to question Riddick later. "You do not go into the dark on this planet Candace. Those monsters that Riddick told you about, they live in the dark and they're just waiting for you to make the mistake of getting too close."

"Did you see something Jack?" Sam asked suspiciously eyeing the ship.

"More then I wanted to." Jack admitted and before Sam could press she shook her head slowly grateful that Sam picked up the warning and nodded. "Come on, lets get back to The Aurora. I have a few things that I want to say to that stupid fuck Johnston."

"I bet you do." Sam nodded as Jack jumped shotgun and Candace got in the back almost automatically, not seeming to mind that the teenager preferred the ship's pilot to her.

"I know that I'm going to regret it pretty quickly if you don't get us the hell out of here Riddick." Jack said as she sat down and he nodded a smirk crossing his face as the buggy shot forward, Sam's buggy following not too far behind them.