Hello everyone and welcome to Chapter 14, brought to you by myself with the help of Pendragon04, who once again proof read this for me before I posted it. Thanks so much! I also want to say a thank you to all my reviewers who have been faithful in telling me what they think. It helps so much to read your reviews, makes me want to continue writing and posting.

Well enough of me blabbering on. Thanks so much for reading, drop in a review and tell me what you think.

Thanks

Kayla

Chapter 14: Skewered

"What the hell happened Sam? You were meant to be watching her." Jack yelled on arrival at the meeting room. "You knew that I had shit to deal with and you said that you'd watch her!"

"I don't know what the hell happened. One minute she was with me in the cargo area of the ship with three of the scientists and the next minute, she was gone. All I can think is that she somehow left or was taken by them back to the temp labs." Sam shook her head, her face flushed slightly because of Jack's on slot. "It's either that or she went for a wonder on the surface. She's slippery Jack, you saw yourself how slippery she could be."

"I'm going to kill her for his, I swear to God, I don't need this right now and I told her not to leave this ship!" Jack snapped, angry at herself as much as she was angry at her friend. She should have been the one making sure the kid didn't get in trouble, not Sam, but instead she had to be confessing to a criminal.

"You can take one of the buggies if you want to go look for her yourself." Captain Manor said but his statement was as much a question of wither she was going to do it as it was an offer of help.

"Well, I'm not about to sit around here and leave everyone else to go looking for her. She's my responsibly sir." She growled. "Give me five minutes to go tell Riddick what's going on and I'll..."

"You going to take Riddick with you?" Captain Manor frowned.

"He can't leave this ship!" Sam said forcefully.

"He's fine now and I can't leave this ship without him, he will blow a gasket if I do." Jack glared at Sam. "I can't go looking for her if I can't leave the fucking ship because he can't leave. Candace is my responsibility Sam, I trusted you with her and you lost her and I'm Riddick's responsibility as far as he is concerned which means that he has a say in this too."

"Jack, he had the kid totally spooked earlier, which, may I add, is why she ended up with me looking after her in the first place. I think that maybe he should stay where he is for the moment."

"No fucking way Sam!" Jack slammed her fist into the meeting room table and the two women who were normally good friends glared at each other. Captain Manor shook his head as he looked between the two of them.

"Enough both of you!" He asserted finally. "Jack, go with Sam and see if you can find the teenager, I'll take Riddick with me if he wants to go see if we can find her. Sam your protest has been noted. Dismissed, both of you."

"Yes sir!" Both women left the meeting room at a jog and jumped into one of the sand buggies, Jack taking her place at the wheel.

With Sam giving her directions, they sped off toward the scientist's temporary labs and camp. The whole planet made Jack nervous and she knew she wasn't all that good at looking after teenagers at the best of times let alone when she was stressed out of her mind trying to deal with her own issues. That and she wasn't sure what exactly the teen was thinking half of the time, when Jack had been her age she had been hopping planets with one of the universe's most wanted men and worrying about him leaving her, acting like a kid had never occurred to her.

Jack in many ways had missed out on being a teenager, simply because most of the time Riddick hadn't treated her like a child, more like an adult. As a teenager, she had been trained in weapons and vigilance, she had learned how to protect herself and how to survive; she had even learned from the best how to kill, how to hide and in a strange sort of way how to protect but not how to nurture or care for a kid.

Candace had chosen the worst possible time to put in her little disappearing act. She hadn't even had time to really talk to Riddick about her sudden killer instincts before John had nervously announced himself and dragged her off to see the Captain because Candace had gone missing. Part of her wondered what exactly Riddick had made of her aggressive declaration; he certainly hadn't looked happy about it. Sometimes she forgot that he didn't know much about her life over the past two years, that he didn't know what she had done yet.

Gods she could be stupid sometimes. She snapped at herself.

"Kirsten, Tony, Daniel?" Sam yelled as they arrived at the Scientist's labs. Jack threw on the break and the buggy skidded to a halt quicker then she thought that it would and jumped out of the frame and onto the sand.

"You guys really got here fast." Kirsten Leal, Dr. Johnston's own personal assistant met them as she came running out of a building, red blood on her white lab coat and her face very pale. "Captain Manor said that it would be a good ten minutes before he could get the medical supplies over here."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Sam asked.

"Captain Manor didn't send you?" The research assistant looked suddenly very grave. "You don't have the blood?"

"Blood?" Sam looked incredulous.

"No! We're looking for a sixteen year old girl whose gone missing. We're not carrying blood." Jack snapped. "What the fuck is going on?"

"Well, the girl isn't missing, but she's been hurt pretty badly. She stumbled across one of our last test subjects and she's been loosing blood fast though we've managed to slow the bleeding considerably, we won't be able to do much more until we get her stitched up properly. She's a rare blood type, without the blood, she'll be pretty close to screwed." Jack followed the women into the room as she explained. "Without the blood, we can't stabilize her."

Candace was lying on a table with two men hovering around her, her face was ghostly pale and there was a massive puncture mark on her stomach, which had been packed with gauze. Machines had been set up around her, monitoring her heart rate, blood pressure and other things. Jack paled and swallowed. The creatures looked set to claim another victim and this was one that she was meant to be looking after.

"Oh God!" Sam breathed as Jack was handed the read out of her blood type and vitals.

Jack read the information quickly and then looked between the suffering teenager and the scientist. "Are you sure she's O negative?"

"Nearly positive."

"Do you have the right equipment for a blood transfusion here?" She asked taking off her vest jacket and handing it to Sam. Kirsten nodded, her perfectly plucked eyebrows furrowed slightly. "I have the same blood type as that girl, even if you're wrong O negative can be given to her anyway. Lets get her stabilized."

"Are you sure you're O negative?" Kirsten asked after giving out instructions for the equipment to be gotten and the second bed set up.

"You can call Captain Manor and ask him if you don't believe me." Jack snapped.

"The ship holds records of medical information for the crew members. Manor has blood for each of his crew members on board, which would be why he would be able to get you the blood anyway." Sam explained a little further.

"But I knew before that what blood type I was. It was one of the first things that... that he checked when I started living with him." Jack nodded and jumped up onto the second gurney that was set up, her green eyes watching the much younger girl with worry as Candace turned her head and looked at her out of bleary eyes.

"Who's he?"

"Her parents died when she was young, he was a guardian of sorts." Sam again answered. "She doesn't like to talk about him very often and she basically never says his name."

"Jack?" The voice that came from the teenager's mouth was weak and feeble.

"Hi. Close your eyes and get some rest, nothing's gonna happen, we'll get you patched up really quick." Jack said and gave the teen a smile as Kirsten moved between them setting up for the blood transfusion. Jack laid back and closed her eyes as she felt the needle penetrate the skin of her arm. Gods, Riddick was right, she was out trying to play super hero all the time. "Sam?"

"Already done, they're on their way. They know what's happening." Sam answered her before she let herself drift off into her own memories.

Jack had only ever really been sick twice when she had been under Riddick's protection. The first time was on that broken down skiff after they had left the planet and Imam had nursed her back to health until Riddick had gotten them to a planet where she had been taken to see a doctor almost immediately. According to the doctor it was a simple virus that had taken hold but that coupled with whatever recent stress she had been under her immune system had packed it in. That had cost her three days in a hospital being pumped full of drugs and worrying that Riddick would leave her and Imam.

When she was nineteen, they had settled down for a couple of months on one of the less desirable planets and like she always did, Jack went out and got a job. It usually didn't bother her, what she did; she had worked in burger bars, construction sites, in all sorts of retail. The whole point was that she was able to get a little bit of money to save or do with as she pleased. In the end the habit helped her out; she had job references from a good handful of planets.

But it was on that one occasion that she managed to contract a nasty infection from a fight she had gotten in at her job. She had been working as a cook at a small diner type place and one of the guys had taken a disliking to her. It had ended in a fight and her getting cut by a less then clean kitchen knife.

The minute that the infection started to spread and she got sick, Riddick had packed them up quickly and they had spent two months floating around space. Jack had spent most of that time fighting the damned infection that had her bedridden for weeks and Riddick doing his best to help her stop the infection from getting any worse. He could have been a bloody doctor with his knowledge and the kit he had on board their ship.

Otherwise she just didn't tend to get sick. Like everyone else she had come down with odd colds and thing that had plagued the human race for generations but even those she didn't catch that often. Considering her job and the time she spent in confined spaces with lots of other people she was healthier then the other pilots that frequented the station that The Aurora docked at.

She didn't know how long she had been sitting on that bed giving her blood to the teenager before she felt a large hand grip her own hand. She knew without even looking that it was Riddick and she smiled then opened her eyes to find that the room was extremely dimmed and that he didn't have his dark goggles on. His silver eyes were watching her face, she had always liked his eyes, she realized looking at them, they had always been a comfort of sorts.

"How you feeling?" He asked as she felt the needle being extracted from her arm and she looked over at Candace with concern but also noticed that some of the color had returned to her pale cheeks and that they were hooking her up to a blood bag.

"A little drained." She answered, trying her hand at humor as Sam brushed some loose hair off the teen's forehead. Candace was breathing evenly and her eyes were closed in sleep as they wheeled her out of the room to transfer her from the temp labs back to The Aurora.

"I'm going to set you up with a little food and get you some juice to have a sip on. After that, all you can do is relax. The Captain has told us that there's a doctor onboard the ship in cryo sleep at the moment and they're going to wake him to see if he would be willing to help the girl." Kirsten Leal walked over with a chocolate bar and a paper cup.

"You wanna tell me exactly what happened to her?" Jack asked frowning but feeling slightly light-headed as she sat up and took the chocolate and the fruit juice.

"She got too close to one of the test subjects that we hadn't taken care of yet. She just kinda wondered off, and then we heard her scream. She was lucky that it didn't kill her." The women shrugged.

"Was it one of those fucking creatures that your boss finds so wonderfully fascinating?" Jack snarled and Kirsten nodded, the look on her face coming close to ashamed.

"Like I said, it's the only one left, the others were let loose again or killed. We just hadn't gotten around to that one yet." The assistant reiterated holding back the fact that there was one more of them tranquilized in the cargo bay that had been assigned to them on The Aurora. "Would you like to see it? I can arrange for you to see it. I mean, if that's what you would like."

"I saw enough of those fucking things seven years ago thanks very much." Jack unhooked her blaster from her side and handed it to Riddick. "I would do it if I thought I would be steady-"

"Think of it as already done Jack." He nodded adjusting the setting to the one that he preferred, that evil glint back in his eye that told her that he would very much enjoy blasting the thing into oblivion.

"Come get me when you're done?" She asked as he settled his goggles over his eyes and moved to the doorway where he paused and looked over his shoulder.

"I'll be back for you in a moment." He answered.

There was one problem with giving your blood away, Jack mused as she watched the sleeping teenager being taken off of the anesthetic, you felt a little dizzy and weak for a while afterward. The teenager groaned slightly as she started to come around but as of yet her eyes hadn't opened and she hadn't spoken.

"You really got yourself into trouble this time kid." Jack whispered shaking her head as the girl's eyes finally opened and a tear trickled down her cheek and a whimper escaped her throat. Jack's heart went out to her in that moment, she knew what it was like to feel helpless and in pain.

"She's going to feel a little weak and be in a bit of pain for a while." Jack was informed as she smoothed down some of Candace's hair in the way that her mother had done for her when she couldn't sleep at night. She just hoped that it offered the girl some sort of comfort. "I'll give her what the doctor told me I could but it won't take all the pain away." After she had checked out the girl, she left the room, closing the door behind her.

"Jack?" The girl's eyes searched the room until she had found Jack's face.

"I'm here." Jack gave her a reassuring smile. "You know I should bloody well skin you alive for running off like that and getting yourself hurt, not to mention worrying me to death. Didn't I tell you to stay on the ship? Didn't I warn you about what was out there?"

"I feel like I've already been skinned alive." She whimpered again and squeezed her eyes shut; another tear or two escaping and trailing slowly down her cheeks.

"Well, the creature is dead and we'll be off this rock within the next few of hours depending on Riddick." Jack wiped the tears away with the edge of the bed sheet.

"Why in the next few hours? I thought that we'd already be gone." Candace frowned, it seemed that she had developed a dislike for the planet too.

"According to my shadow, I need a good few hours rest before I try and pilot this ship. I think he's worried that I'm going to pass out at the controls or something." Jack was grinning, not having the heart to chastise the kid any more then she already had. She almost had to laugh when the before mentioned shadow appeared in the doorway a frown etched onto his face.

"Why would you pass out?"

"I gave you a blood transfusion about three and a half hours ago." She shrugged. The teenager looked at her in shock. "Don't worry about it kid, I wasn't about to let you die on me from loss of blood."

"But how? I don't even know what blood type I am."

"Don't complain when someone is able to save your life kid." Riddick said stepping inside the room and laying a hand on Jack's shoulder. "You should be resting Jack." The tone was light, all he was doing was trying to voice his opinions but it came out like more of an order then he had meant it to.

"I don't need to be in a fucking bed to rest Riddick." She gave him a pointed look and he shrugged. "I haven't had the chance to talk to the doctor yet. Anyway, I wanted to make sure that Candace came out of her surgery alright."

"Did I?" Candace asked looking skeptical.

"As far as I know you did. You'll be in pain for a while but after we're up in the air, we'll put you in cryo-sleep while you heal up, it might make things a little easier for you, you shouldn't feel much pain while you're in one of the tubes." Jack smoothed down the girl's hair again and gave her a smile as Kirsten walked in with a full syringe.

"It's just something to numb the pain and help you relax." The scientist explained as she injected the contents of the syringe into the teenager's arm.

"Stay until I fall asleep?" Candace asked tentatively.

"Not going anywhere." Jack nodded and gave her a smile.

"You and I need to talk Jack." Riddick said as Jack lowered herself into a chair and frowned. He hated when she did that, he could already see her mind jumping to conclusions before he had even spoken again.

"If you're going to rag on me for helping Candace then I don't even want to hear it. It was my choice and that's the end of that. She's my responsibility because of you and I've got to take her a little more seriously after this." She said. She was exhausted; he could see it in every bone of her body.

What made her so willing to put herself on the line for other people?

"You did a noble thing Jack. I wasn't going to say anything about it." He sat down across from her and watched her watch him. He smiled to himself, Jack had always watched him closely, not usually as openly as she was able to at that moment, but her eyes had always had a knack for following his movements or being able to work out exactly where he was even in the dark and it wasn't something that he found unpleasant. Just like her curiosity and aptitude for learning, it was something that had made him comfortable around her. "I'm not going to 'rag on you' for it."

"Oh." Jack bit her lip and gave him a confused look. "What is it then Riddick?"

"When I put that blade to your throat before-"

Jack didn't let him finish. "We've already dealt with that." She shook her head stubbornly.

"Listen to me Jack." He snapped a little more harshly then he had intended to. "You have to understand that, that could happen to me at anytime, you could come in the firing line again Jack. That rage is apart of me, has been for as long as I can remember."

"I know that. I accepted that part of you a long time ago. That's apart of the person that I've come to know and love." She actually looked afraid for a moment. What did she think he was going to say to her? Did she think that he was going to tell her that he didn't want her around any more, that he thought that he was too dangerous for her to handle? Even if that was the truth, he wouldn't have told her, for a start she wouldn't have listened and as much as part of him would have loved to send her away from him or walk away from her, he knew that he couldn't, that he would stay in her life as long as she made it clear that he was welcome to do so. "Riddick, what's wrong?" She pushed again.

"I want to make sure that you know who and what exactly it is that you just claimed to love Jack." Riddick said bluntly.

"I don't say anything that I don't mean." She set her jaw and was set to stare him down if she had to.

"Jack, I'm a killer, I like the kill, I like the hunt, and I like the smell of blood and fear." He snapped at her, "that is apart of who I am. Do you love that too?" He looked evenly at her and then watched in near horror as tears suddenly filled her eyes. "Gods Jack, for fuck's sake don't cry."

"I'm sorry." She said wiping at her eyes with her hands and trying to pull herself together again, her own stress and worry getting to her on top of his words cutting a little too close to the bone. "I screwed up alright, I know how you get when you're in a rage, I should have given you more time to cool off and I know that but I couldn't just leave you in there to seethe. That's not who I am Riddick. I just had to make you understand why I can't be afraid of you like other people are. Why the fact that you're a killer and enjoy everything about it doesn't bother me! Maybe I shouldn't have been so eager to get in this room earlier but I couldn't help myself. I know I rush into things without thinking but I knew you weren't going to hurt me. I know you!"

"What are you apologizing for Jack?"

"I dunno!" Jack frowned at him. "Everything. I'm apologizing for putting myself in the position where you almost killed me again. I'm sorry that I came back to the planet, I'm sorry that I almost got you killed by going into that fucking ship, I'm sorry that I have an aggressive streak, I'm sorry that I've got Johnston's people breathing down my neck now, I'm sorry that you don't like the fact that I care about you, all of you, killer and all. I'm sorry-" She stopped her head long rush of words when he held his hand up for silence. She just looked at him, breathing a little quick, the tears gone but now along with the persona of exhaustion that surrounded her, there was now an air of defeat and anger. "I'm sorry that you think that just because you almost killed me a time or two that I would all of a sudden be scared of you and stop caring about you. You are not unlovable Riddick." She made herself finish what she had to say before falling completely silent.

A headset next to him started bleeping and he reached for it slowly as Jack seemed to pull herself together again. He frowned as he handed it over to her and she put it on. It seemed that every time he wanted to sit down and have a serious conversation with her one event or another or a person or stupid fucking headsets interrupted them. He would have liked to find out where that aggressive streak had come from, why she seemed to care so deeply about him, find out what the hell she had been doing over the past two years that Kelly had felt she had to take the rap for.

"Jack here." She answered it. "No sir- Whose problem sorry?- Well how soon do you want to be in the air?- No sir, not complaining- The doctor's seen her again?- I'll be right up to see you- No sir, he won't be joining me- Yes, I'm fine sir- I'll make my way up right away."

Jack stood up and grabbed her vest jacket almost aggressively and she didn't even bother to put on before walking out of the door, she walked like she was pissed off about something and he knew it was him who had pissed her off. Women, no matter who they were, were such moody creatures he thought as she walked out of the door.