Hey all and welcome to chapter 16. Again many thanks go out to Pendragon4 for helping me along with some grammar stuff, I can never seem to get that down well. Also big thanks go out to my reviewers of the last chapter: a, cateye-120 and Pendragon4. Not to mention great thanks to everyone else who has reviewed me before, your reviews are the reason that I still write and update, please, please, please continue, constructive criticism very welcome. Keep giving me a reason to write.

Now on with the story.

Kayla

Chapter 16: The Start Of Night

Pain and people hovering over her seemed to be the two constants at that point in Candace Dalton's life, that and Jack's near motherly worry. The pain, she likened to getting her appendix out, though, honestly, that had hurt less, she hadn't been awake to feel herself be sliced through and then been knocked out for the operation. She sure as heck appreciated painkillers now, more so then she ever thought that she would.

At least now she understood why Jack was so haunted and also why she loved the big convict. He had saved her from the physical monsters and the monsters in her head. Sam had explained a few things to her during their time together while Jack and Riddick had been off exploring their past, things that the older woman had only found out recently herself. But she hadn't thought that the planet was as dangerous as her new guardian had made out, not until she had been attacked by one of the creatures that had been described to her. But then she was known to have to make her own mistakes before she could learn from them; other people's just didn't go down as well.

Well, she could admit when she was wrong, at least she had that going for her.

Candace turned her head as a pale but gently smiling Jack walked through the door with Dr. Loring. The doctor had been in and out of the room all day checking up on stitches and blood pressure, along with the print outs from the monitor. What those print outs said she wasn't sure. Sometimes he walked away smiling, others he had a worried frown on his face. She could only hope that there was little or no real risk of her dieing out of the blue.

"Come to put me into cryo?" She asked as Dr. Loring looked at her chart.

"Are you still in a lot of pain?" The doctor asked her.

"Could use a few tons of morphine." Candace shrugged, her tone level, serious but humorous. "Someone going to tell me what's going on? Am I going into cryo or not?" That was another thing that Candace was not known for, being patient, she just didn't have the energy or the calm for it.

"Or not." Jack answered. "Dr. Loring doesn't think that it would be a good idea for you to go into cryo-sleep. In which case, you get me as a nursemaid and I promise you I'm not the best there is out there. I'm a mean bitch when I wanna be so you had better not cross me." There was a smile on her face making the threat all but void but that was Jack's humor, serious but not at the same time. Candace liked it, she had found that she was at the very least safe with Jack; it had been a while since she could say that.

"Great, more people to baby me." The teenager rolled her eyes but was greatly relieved. Cryo-sleep might keep you young and put you out but it scared her, anything could happen without you ever knowing about it. "You know my mother stopped by earlier?"

"No, I didn't know. I thought that security had her blocked out, at least they were meant to. Did she give a reason why?" Jack took a seat, a frown on her face as Dr. Loring set to checking the bandages and the stitches.

"Not really straight out like that but she made it pretty clear that all she wanted was to gloat." Candace winced as the Doctor's cold hands probed around the carefully stitched wound. "She came in all smiles, took one look at me and laughed. I swear I would have punched her if I could but then she went all dead serious and said, 'I hope you don't expect me to pay of all of this Candace, you're not my responsibility anymore.' Then left." There was hurt and anger on the teenager's face as she felt again the scorn from her mother. What had she done to deserve her mother hating her? It didn't make sense to her, that just because her father loved her and tired to make sure that she was happy that she should be an object of hatred, it wasn't as if he hadn't lavished attention on his wife too.

"Do you feel too hot or cold or physically sick or like your going to vomit besides the obvious discomfort from the wound itself?" The doctor's blue eyes looked over her with concern.

"Just the pain. I feel like I was just run though." Candace answered him a look of scorn on her own face. What the hell was the doctor thinking, that it would just miraculously not feel like she had been ripped right through? And how the hell could you call that pain, obvious discomfort? It was a whole lot more then just bloody discomfort.

"Alright, I'll give you another shot of painkillers to take the edge off. Then you just have to lay there and get plenty of sleep." He smiled and covered the area of black stitching with fresh gauze; he busied himself with making more notes on her chart for a few minutes before turning and addressing Jack in his most doctorly manor. "Now, Jack, if you would permit me to look at your shoulder while you're here, the Captain said you dislocated it a few days ago."

"Try less then forty-eight hours ago and it was taken care of then, doesn't need any more attention then it already got." Jack eyed the kind man with sudden suspicion and Candace had to stop herself from laughing, it seemed that Jack was afraid of more then she let on. It made her feel a little better, if someone who appeared to be as tough as Jack could be afraid of a nice Doctor then her own fears didn't seem quite so bad, at least not her small ones.

"I was told that it was re-set but you could have damaged it further since the event since it does not seem that you have taken things very easily. It can't have been easy to keep it stationary while driving sand buggies and piloting a large cargo ship." He insisted but Candace watched as Jack shook her head firmly. Why did Jack have to always be so bloody stubborn?

"I realized that Dr. Loring but I'm not a good with doctors. The person who set the shoulder had a hard enough time patching me up when I hurt it and when I did the damage to my face. But they knew what they were doing. I'm fine." Jack said sternly. "I don't need anymore help."

"She has trust issues." Candace looked at the doctor and shrugged giggling while she did it. She didn't actually know where the thoughts and words were coming from, they just flowed out of her mouth before she could stop them and that made her want to giggle harder. "She only trusts one man and he isn't here to convince her to let you help her out a bit. She doesn't take help well either, doesn't matter who is offering that help."

"Shut up Candy." Jack snapped and the girl laughed again as she was scowled at. For some reason or another she just couldn't stay serious at that moment in time.

"Just let him probe around a little, I'm sure your boy won't be that mad when the good ol' doc tells you that whoever did your work over did a rather good job." She advised.

"God, you're giddy."

"It's the drugs." Dr. Loring explained as he made a few notes on the makeshift chart again. She only hoped that he wasn't writing that she couldn't have any more of this particular drug mix, this was the first time in hours that she had felt no pain at all.

"It's the drugs." The teenager mimicked and smiled as she suddenly felt tired again. Her physical and mental condition just seemed to be all over the place, even to her.

"I can't talk to you when you're like this Candy." Jack shook her head but she was smiling, amused by the teenager's drug induced antics.

"Well at least I'm not feeling anything right now." Candace said honestly and then was suddenly deadly serious. "If I'm not going into cryo-sleep, does that mean I'm moving back in with you two?"

"Not tonight. You need rest and I have a feeling that tonight is going to be a little rough." Jack answered with a shake of her head.

"You finally admitted your undying love for him and now you're going to get down to, um...business?" She offered weakly after seeking for a right word and not finding one. Candace could feel herself getting a little giggly again.

"You have a dirty mind for a sixteen year old Candace." Jack laughed.

"I can't help it. I get that kinda thing from my mother. She happens to be a dirty whore."

"That's nice of you to comment on." Jack shook her head. "No, none of that will be going on in that room. I'm more worried about nightmares and my nightmares are no nicer to hear then to have."

"Oh." Candace actually managed to her credit to look ashamed of herself.

"Sam'll be in to check on you through the night if I can't. Sleep well." Jack stood up and left the room, making a note to talk to Sam about making sure that the girl's mother couldn't get in to see her again.

"It might not be a bad idea to get high or drunk tonight before you try and sleep Jack. Those nightmares were fierce when you hadn't come face to face with the things that were out to kill you." Sam said as Jack threw herself on the bottom bunk opposite her friend. "Careful on the furniture." Jack pursed her lips and stuck out her tongue in a childish manor that made Sam smile.

"Yeah, sure, great. High or drunk, Riddick would skin me alive for doing something like that." Jack pulled the vial of red liquid out of her vest jacket pocket, slightly amazed that it hadn't smashed yet with everything that had happened in the last few days. Suddenly the idea wasn't as absurd as it had been only moments before; in fact it was quite appealing. "Or I could get high and spend the night in the gym, punching the shit out of one of those fucking huge bags until I can't do anything but sleep the sleep of the dead."

"When I suggested that you got high, I didn't mean on the shit you get from your friend." Sam took the vial from her and moved to the other bunk, playing with it in her hand in much the same way that Jack had been playing with it before. "I've got a better cure." She reached into a bag that she pulled out of a cooler cabinet to one side of the bunk and took out a beer with one hand. She took out a second and tossed it to Jack.

"This shit is contraband." Jack shook her head and opened the bottle. She took a sip and made a face as the grainy taste washed over her tongue. "It's not Stella and I just remembered why I only drink beer when eating pizza and watching shitty movies with Joe." She found a smile playing on her own lips and she wished she could glare at it and call it 'traitor'. Thinking about those stupid movie nights couldn't help but bring a smile to her face.

"When it comes to contraband it helps to be the security officer. Anyway, the rule only is, not to drink while on duty, just everyone interoperates that as no drink allowed. I mean, you've tasted the shit the Captain keeps and that's better then anything that I might bring aboard. That's besides the point, we're both off duty right now and adults so it doesn't matter what we're drinking." Sam shook her head and took a gulp of her own beverage. "So, why are you avoiding Riddick anyway?"

"Is it that obvious?" Jack closed her eyes and groaned.

"What happened? Before Candy went missing no one could have pried the two of you apart. You know you guys have people wondering if you're lovers and shit."

"I told him about what the good ol' Dr. Johnston said and then told him that I didn't need him to take care of it for me and he wanted to. Ever since then he's started hovering again."

"He's always been hovering hun. You've just not noticed it until now."

"So you think Candace is right?" Jack took another sip of the beer, trying to ignore the taste and let it relax her.

"That you have feelings for him?" Sam gave her an honest look. "Maybe. It doesn't matter what the kid or I think Jack. You know yourself, though sometimes I wonder about that, and only you can tell us if we're right. If you do so what? What's the worst that can happen?"

"He could leave again."

"Or he could stay. What scares you more?"

"God I'm screwed." Jack started picking at the edge of the blanket. "I already told him that I loved him, that I cared about him and it didn't exactly get a great reaction from him Sam. It's not like I proclaimed any sort of undying romantic feelings and he still gave me this disapproving look like, he didn't get how I could love him at all, that or he didn't want me to."

"It's my opinion that you worry too much. Let what happens happen and stop worrying about it. If you like him, you like him, let that take you where it takes you. You can either worry about it and screw it up or you can just relax and deal with whatever comes at you. Just try not to think about it as much as you seem to be" Sam shrugged and took off her boots. "You going to be tending bar for Johnny when you get home?"

"Probably for a while. You wanting on the guest list for the more exclusive nights?" Jack looked at her again, silently thankful that she had changed the subject. Sam was good at tactical subject changing; she knew the right things to say and when enough had been said. It was a gift and one that the security officer used well.

"Would be nice. You know, a pay off of sorts for all my good advice." Sam smiled and ducked as Jack chucked a pillow at her.

"How about I do you one better and get you a table."

"You mean one of those exclusive little alcoves?" Sam was grinning.

"Yep. I've got two of them under my name when I'm home. I'll just let Joel know to change it on the guest list. You and five others. It's not a bad deal. A little good advice for a very good seat in the best club in town if I do say so myself." She took another couple of gulps and set the bottle down while Sam opened a second. She had to admit, if she had much more she might just find herself enjoying the taste. "You still wanting to catch a flight home on The Chancer or have the latest events changed your mind?"

"And stopped me from wanting a ride home with a good friend of mine? I think not! Of course I still want to go back with you! Need I mention that a ride with you is free where as it costs to get a commercial shuttle down to the planet? What are you going to do with the teenager that Riddick acquired for you?"

"Find her dad for her if I can. If not, well, she can stay with me, if she wants to that is. I don't know what she will really want or not right now, I'm just speculating." Jack shrugged. "I've yet to put her options to her. There's not way I'm ditching her or forcing foster care on her, not unless foster care is what she really wants."

"Well, foster care might not be as bad as you think for her. I mean, she is a teenager Jack; they take time, energy and money. Your time is limited as is your supply of cash as for energy, do you have enough to deal with her and Riddick?"

"Tell the kid put on a ship heading for their first placement, a place in a totally different planetary system then you're used to, that foster care isn't as bad as they might think." Jack shook her head. "I was saved by the crash. She was saved by Riddick."

"You hate but love that crash don't you?"

"Got it in one." Jack finished her beer and put the bottle down on the floor. She rubbed the back of her neck with one hand thinking for a minute. "I don't have to really worry about money, I have plenty of that from before I thought Riddick had gone and died on me."

"What does that mean? You're making it sound a little less then legal Jack." Sam acutely looked a little concerned.

"You're right, it was a little below board but it was what we did to stay alive and under the radar. I know that Riddick wouldn't grudge me using that money to help her. After all, he helped me, I'll just be helping her in a similar way."

"If you say so Jack."

"I do say so Sam." She smiled. "Thanks for the beer, see you later?"

"Not a problem. I'll check in on Candace every now and then. Just try not to have nightmares tonight eh Jack?"

Jack stood up a gentile smile on her face, one that could almost be described as tired. "I have my best chance in that room with me." She answered and then was gone.

...Darkness and sand shrouded her senses. It smelt hot, like an arid desert but felt cool like a pocket of cool air surrounded her. It didn't take a lot of imagination to know where she was and what was going to happen next.

The sounds around her were muffled, like she was hearing them through ears packed with cotton wool but the sounds were fearful and sent her heart racing and her breath quickening. She felt like she was running and running, her legs and arms moving but she was going nowhere, like it was some damn funny gym exercise.

Her throat was dry, she was desperate for water, for moisture of some sort but she knew there was none to be had around her. She could feel moisture on her skin, cool moisture but she knew it was only their blood, blood that was blue, deceptively the color chosen for water, blood that chilled her bones and felt sticky against her skin.

There were others with her in the pitch black of the long night. Their irregular breathing could just be heard through the cotton wool packed in her ears. They were all running, and by instinct and experience alone, she could have recognized them all; Riddick, Imam, Carolyn...

There was no fire burning brightly or pale blue light this time, just the darkness, the blackness in which you couldn't see your fingers dancing an inch in front of your eyes, not unless you were Riddick and she didn't know what he was seeing all around them, truth be told, she didn't want to know what he was seeing, she could imagine it well enough.

The creatures were there, the snapping of their jaws almost sounding like that of an angry dog snapping at the heels of an intruder. She was the intruder, she was on their turf, she should never have gone there! What had the stupid social work people been thinking putting her on that ship? The creatures kept bumping into her, toying with her, playing cat and mouse, until all that was left was fear; her mind was practically numb because of fear.

One by one the others were picked off without a sound of warning of their going, the telltale sign of their passing only the fading away of their presence. Finally she was alone.

Why wouldn't they just take her too? Why couldn't they just get it over with? It was about time they killed her too! Couldn't they just stop playing with her and end it?

"We live on your fear." A high pitched but harsh scratchy voice said to her left. "We own you."

Then there was light, faint light but light enough for her to see by. She was totally alone now, the skiff was only a hundred or so yards away from her, only a little more in front of her then close. There were no creatures in sight, no hindrances. She could get off the planet, she could leave, she could survive.

She wasn't fifteen, she told herself fiercely, she knew how to pilot a skiff, she had done it many times before. It was easy. All she had to do was get there. All she had to do was move her battered and bruised body to the skiff and she would be home free.

Alone, she stumbled forward, moving toward the battered hull of the vessel. Tears were running down her dirty cheeks, her face red and swollen, tears of mourning for the dead, for those lost and left behind. Part of her wanted to give up, just not bother lifting off the planet and being alone.

"No!" A voice in her head screamed at her. "You will obey your religion. You will survive!"

"A survivalist's number one rule," She told herself out loud, "is to survive." She chanted it like a mantra; with each footstep she was getting closer and closer to her goal of survival. It wasn't wrong for her to survive when the others didn't, it would just mean that she would have to live with it and she knew she was strong enough to live with it.

"You shall not leave. We own you and we say that you shall not leave." It was the harsh, high-pitched voice again but this time it was in front of her rather then beside her.

She stopped dead. Just ten yards from the skiff, just ten yards from survival, she had been stopped dead in her tracks. Fear paralyzing her motor functions. The voice laughed and out of the skiff stepped a creature.

Its gray body was unaffected by the pale light. Its tail flicked from side to side like the tail of an angry cat. It's hammered head moved ever so slightly as its eyes swept over her. In some twisted way it looked elegant, even beautiful as it made its way toward her. She was caught in a trace, unable to move.

"What god will you pray to now? We own you. We have marked you and we will never let you go..."

Then her eyes flew open.

She was lying in the same position that she had fallen asleep in. She was lying on her back, a small distance from Riddick. One hand was by her face underneath her pillow and the other was resting lazily across her stomach on top of the comforter. Jack bit her lip and blinked a couple of times trying to force her emotions away. It didn't work, a tear slipped down her cheek. What was it with her a tears anyway?

Riddick's breathing was easy, it hadn't changed in the slightest since she had been awake but she knew that even that could be deceiving. He had a knack for deception. Sometimes, that fact in itself was enough to unnerve her a little. Sometimes she just wanted to be able to read him in the same way that he was able to so easily read her.

To hide her tears from him, she rolled over into her side and clutched her pillows to her body, wishing that she could order light on to full but she didn't dare, Riddick's eyes were too sensitive and then he would know for sure that she had had another nightmare and if she could, she would hide that from him. She licked her lip and closed her eyes, savoring the feeling of being awake. The feeling of being out of her mind and safe in the open.

Another tear slipped down her cheek.

"Get a grip Jack!" She yelled at herself mentally and pushed it away with her fingers before another one could fall and start her sobbing.

"You have a nightmare?" The sound of Riddick's voice and the shifting of his body toward her making her sigh her defeat.

"Something like that." She whispered rolling over and coming face to face with him. A tired smile played across her lips for a moment, a smile that was much preferable to the tears in her eyes for her but he frowned. "Don't worry about it. It's not that big a deal. I'm fine."

"Those nightmares have always been a big deal Jack." He said flatly and raised his eyebrows.

"This wasn't a normal nightmare." She shrugged.

"And?" He pushed.

"And?" She gritted her teeth for a moment and he gave her an expecting look. She wasn't going to get away without talking to him about it. "And they wouldn't fucking eat me. They wouldn't just end it. It was told that I belonged to them, that they lived through my fear, which they fed off it. They told me that they owned me and that they wouldn't let me leave." Another tear slid down her cheek and his thumb gently wiped it away.

"They don't own you Jack."

"Yeah they do. They're my obsession; they have been an obsession in my life for a long time. I'm either afraid of them or obsessed. It's like I can't get them out of my head, like they haunt me or something." Jack clenched her jaw and her nostrils flared slightly as she fought to keep emotion separate from her words. "After Demedia and loosing you, I couldn't stop the dreams, you weren't there to fight the monsters so I drew and I drew...I don't know how many notebooks I've filled with drawings of them. Finally I figured that if I made the mark they made on me visible then it might bother me less, that they might leave me alone, that I might actually get a night or two of sleep every once and a while."

"The tattoo?"

"Got it in one." She shrugged. "Bret didn't get it. I think the whole thing worried him a little. But he never said anything; he just let me do what he thought I was doing to make myself happy. I just about killed myself in my first months at the academy trying to wear myself out so I wouldn't dream at night. When Sarge. found out, he put me on some herbal shit that wouldn't affect me when I was flying but that got me through the night. It was as addictive as hell.

"Until now, they've been trying to kill me. I'd wake up screaming because I'd almost been killed and scare everyone around me to death. And yet for some reason I just don't understand they feel bad for me. I even met a guy once, Jamie, because we got assigned to do a week's deep space flying together. He hated that he'd been paired with a girl. The guy's whole attitude toward me changed after he heard one of my nightmares. We were good friends until he died in a crash."

"I'm sorry." His mercury eyes seemed to be watching her face intently.

"I don't want you to feel sorry for me." She shook her head. "Shit happens and you get on with life as best as you can. I'm a lot stronger then I look Riddick, if I let people dieing stop me from functioning then it would have happened along time ago when Bret died and if not then certainly before that, when I thought that you had died. If I hadn't been able to deal with death Riddick, that would have killed me, you were my life line!"

"I wasn't trying to imply that you aren't strong Jack."

"Good, lets leave it at that before you say something that'll really piss me off." She smiled and was relived when she saw the corners of his mouth twitch slightly; at least he still had a sense of humor.