Jeeze Louise! It has taken me another extreme period in time to get one chapter out. I really have to stop making time promises.
I could try and explain to you the stress of quitting one job and moving nearly two hundred miles to start another job two days later and all while studying for an exam that has had me all twisted up in knots for days and weeks and months on end but that would be a very long and not so interesting story so we shall leave it as the above.
I had a lot that I needed to deal with in this chapter and I'm not sure how I feel about it yet, perhaps good, perhaps bad but this is what my muse had to offer me. I had two things that I wanted to deal with so that we could get onto the next plot twisting stuff and I hope that I have tied off all the untied ends that had nothing to do with what is too come.
I wanted to get Kevin's death partially dealt with (yes there will be more on that to come - call this perhaps the calm before the storm, delayed reactions are wonderful things) but I also wanted to get some of Jack's feelings out in the open and not feelings that she would perhaps want Riddick to know about right away.
Anyway….tell me what you think. Action starts kicking up in chapter 27.
Kayla
Chapter 26: After…
Jack was nervous, there was no other way to describe the way that her gut felt like it was twisting itself in knots. Not even the cool, calm presence of Riddick next to her could make her feel the same calmness. They had rang the bell, rang it twice and now she was carefully thinking about leaving, just leaving and going home or coming back another time.
She looked over her shoulder at Riddick. He looked back at her, his silver eyes protected by his dark goggles that she was beginning to hate the presence of and she sighed. "Best just leave I guess." She said in a bare whisper.
"Give them a minute." He answered her as the door that she was facing away from opened and Jonathan filled the doorway. Jack looked slowly back and bit her lower lip.
"Hi Johnny." She said softly, hoping that she looked more confident then she felt. Johnny looked at her for a minute, a frown firmly attached to his face.
"You'd best come in Jack." He said as he stepped out of her way. "Go through to the living room, I'll let Kelly and Candace know that you've come." He said and she did as she was bid.
She walked somewhat numbly down the hallway, Riddick behind her, the first two fingers of his right hand staying in contact with her lower back as she led them through to a living room that she knew very well. She took a seat on one of the corner chairs, her back to the wall and was slightly concerned that Riddick didn't feel relaxed enough to do the same. He stood standing, not in stance that she would say was defensive or aggressive but that was ready, ready for anything and that worried her.
"Riddick…" She looked up at him and he shook his head so she took a deep breath which she exhaled quickly through her mouth once more and Johnny entered the room, looking at them both seriously.
"What exactly happened to Kevin Jack?" Jonathan asked after he had taken a good look Jack who was sat down nervously in his living room.
"Johnny I…" She wasn't given time to hardly start what she was about to say when Candace strode into the room, followed by Damien and Kelly, a look of white furry on her face. It seemed that as she got better, more of the original Candace seemed to appear again and under different circumstances that would have given Jack a sense of relief but not at that moment, not with what was about to be discussed ahead of her.
"Where the hell have you been?" She demanded "'I'll be back by three or four but if you need me you know where I am'." The teenager mimicked, a look of disgust on her face. "Well, you were not back at three or four or that night for that matter and I did NOT know where you were or if you were alright and no one could tell me that either. All I got was a report that Riddick had killed a friend of theirs," She pointed at the Marks "And that you were in bad shape when they last saw you!" The girl snapped aggressively.
"He was no friend." Damien said under his breath, a scowl on his face too and Candace sent him an angry look and he shut up quickly. Damien it seemed had learned how to keep on the girl's good side while they were away.
"Fine fucking guardian you are Jack!" Candace glared at the older woman, hurt and anger clear as day on her face and it was the hurt that got to Jack the most. She hadn't thought that Candace cared enough to really be that hurt by her and she was sorry that she had let her down that much in the first place.
"I'm sorry you were worried Candy." Jack whispered.
"You were gone for two fucking days Jack!" Her voice was pleading, like she was desperate to be given an answer that she could trust and believe.
"I know how long I was gone and I'm sorry that I worried you Candy but I knew you were safe here with Johnny, Kelly and Joe." Jack said softly, she wished for a moment that Riddick would at least say something instead of just hover over her somewhat over protectively. That was Riddick though, a quite yet formidable presence, ever tangible but he only acted when he had to. It was probably best that he was saying nothing.
"What happened with Kevin Jack?" Kelly asked softly, touching the teenager's wrist and quieting her at least for a moment.
"We got into a fight over me no less. Not trying to blow my own trumpet or anything but yeah, me." She said sarcastically and then sighed, sobering, trying to let her anger slide away. "He tried it on with me again and when I said 'no', he pulled a blade on me." She shrugged like it was something that had been expected.
"He pulled a blade on you?" Jonathan sounded skeptical.
"Yes, pulled a blade on me I did not go running for a weapon the minute that the shit got tough. You saw him Johnny! He was off his face, totally fucked and he wasn't listening to me at all." Jack said slightly aghast that she wasn't being believed. "You know how volatile that Kevin can be Johnny and you know that I'm not some psychopath that instantly reaches for a weapon when the going gets tough."
"Shh, Jack." Kelly said before looking at her husband. "Let the girl talk first, ask questions once she's spoken."
"He pulled a damn blade on me and I was forced to defend myself. I didn't want to fight him but he wasn't going to have it any other way. I didn't want to hurt him, I was trying not to hurt him, just scare him enough for him to leave me alone. I would have left it at that, I would have." She cried. "But it didn't work that way. I ended up cut and flat on my back about to get my throat cut for me when Riddick found us. Kevin was going to kill me; kept saying that if he couldn't have me then no one was going to. Called me a whore because I wasn't being faithful to Bret. Said I was Riddick's bitch." Jack answered resisting the urge to reach for Riddick but he was one step ahead of her, he moved closer to her as if by instinct, the front of his arm brushing the back of her's.
"Oh?" Jonathan looked at her like there was something that she wasn't say or missing out.
"It was almost the same sort of situation with the merc who broke Kelly's back, remember Johnny? He was going to kill her so you killed him, are you getting the picture yet?" Jack snapped a little harshly. "Riddick had to kill him, he was going to kill me." She tried to clarify what she was saying.
"Yes, I remember, but did you forget he was a friend at some point along the line and not a fucking merc?" Jonathan answered back in a similar tone. "The merc that went after Kelly was no friend. Kevin was my friend, he was your friend too. Do I need to remind you about the countless times that he's had your back when the going has gotten tough for you Jack? He was your friend!"
"I know that damn it!" She yelled, her voice cracking with emotion but she had promised that she wasn't going to cry over it, not again.
"Kevin was no one's friend." Damian said under his breath again but no one seemed to listen to his comments.
"Damien, Candace…" Kelly started in a voice that was very much the mother in the woman, authoritative and yet soft.
"Yes, yes, I know, go somewhere else, anywhere else but here." Damien rolled his eyes and Candace glared at them all. "Come on Candy, time to go." The boy laid a hand on her arm but she angrily snatched it away, the fire in her temper getting the better of her.
"Damn it Jack!" The girl snapped but there was an almost pleading look on her face, her tone of voice as she continued much the same pleading tone that it had been earlier. "Why the hell is it that every time something gets serious I get sent away? I might only be sixteen but this affects me too and I deserve to know what is going on!"
"I'll tell you later, I promise. Please Candy…" Jack did a little pleading of her own, her head was pounding already and she didn't want to have more of a headache trying to keep her tone level and her words half-way respectable. She was upset and angry all at once and it wasn't helping her trying and keep things in perspective.
"Great, just fucking great! I'm getting out of his shit-hole of a place and going for a walk. I'll be back when I fucking feel like getting back!" She left the room and Jack flinched when the front door slammed shut. She couldn't blame her; she would have reacted the same way if she had been her.
Jack closed her eyes and let her hands hide her face. So far things were not going well. What had she expected? Anger from Johnny and Kelly, yes, but not from Candace. So far the teenager had reacted to things much the same way she would have if she had been in her shoes when it came to another death hanging over them but she had been mistaken when she thought she would take her two-day absence calmly.
'Whose next to yell?' The thought passed her mind when she took a deep breath and calmly looked up again, her face a mask that she had perfected years ago when she had lived with Riddick and had tried to fool him into thinking that he hadn't hurt her or distressed her. It had never worked against him but it had against others, she could only hope that it would work for her again here.
"You should have scared him off Jack, not killed him." Kelly said calmly. Her voice was level, her tone light – there was no condemnation there, just concern and a little bit of sadness. Death had never sat well with Kelly, be it the Merc that had killed her brother or paralysed her to the man that had once been a friend. Kelly didn't like it.
"He wasn't learning his lesson and I killed him." Riddick spoke for the first time, his voice the ice voice, the voice he used when he was calling for no arguments, the voice he used before he killed. Jack winced; she could feel the tension in the room switch to him. She didn't want him too take all the blame for her but she understood that he was giving her the chance to get her breath back and get rid of the emotion so she could talk more effectively. "But I don't think you heard her right the first time. She said he was going to kill her. Personally, that was what concerned me the most. The fact that he was going to kill her." Riddick spoke slowly and carefully.
"It wasn't that easy Kelly. I wasn't really myself at the time." She kind of mumbled, not wanting to have to explain what she meant, what it was like when the animal in her roared and took over. "I'm sorry that Kevin died, I really am, but he went too far. If he hadn't pulled that blade he wouldn't have died." Her voice got stronger as she continued on. "If he hadn't tried to kill me. It's not like I went out there to kill him."
"Kevin always had to play the fool didn't he?" Kelly shook her head, seemingly satisfied but what had already been said but Johnny wasn't quite ready to give up the argument yet.
"Why did you always have to be taunting him Jack?" Johnny asked. "You know that he was obsessed with you and yet you taunted him, threw it all in his face."
"I never went out to taunt him. I acted no differently in front of him then I would have in front of you or Joe, or Luke." She shook her head. "No differently."
"He had your back on more then one occasion and you just tempted him right to his death." Johnny shook his head.
"Johnny it wasn't like that. He picked a fight and then threatened me with a blade; I wasn't trying to get him killed." Jack shook her head wildly, suddenly more distressed then she had been since it had happened. She was distressed and suddenly afraid of the man in front of her. It wasn't that she thought he would hurt her physically, she knew he wouldn't but she was afraid that he was going to end his family's relationship with her, excommunicate her from the people that she was close to. "I didn't want him to die Johnny, I didn't!" Tears filled her eyes but didn't spill over. She wasn't going to cry now!
"Shhh." Riddick whispered, his hand reaching out and caressing the back of her neck and silencing her with just a touch. "Kevin died because he was stupid. I killed him, yeah, I killed him. But he walked into his own death willingly, he wasn't tempted or dragged. He pulled a blade and was about to kill Jack. When I got there, she was already bleeding. What kind of a friend does that?" She could hear the quiet threat in the tone of his voice as he spoke and it sent a shiver down her spine. Jonathan regarded him for a moment, his rhetorical question working over in the man's mind and then finally he nodded as if just at that moment seeing sense.
"You had us very worried Jack. We thought for a while that you had jumped planets." Kelly said and shook her head, a frown on her face and sadness clearly in her eyes. Johnny hadn't spoken again and that made something in Jack really hurt badly.
"I thought about it Kel, thought about it too hard but Riddick quickly pointed out the error in that train of thought. You all are my family, I've been this stubborn in keeping you thus far and I'm going to stay stubborn." Jack said but there was a hint of sadness in her voice. Riddick just let his hand rest on her neck, his thumb tracing lazy circles on her left shoulder, he was her reassurance and he knew it. "I'm sorry about Kevin Johnny, he was an ass and in the end deserved what he got, I won't say that he didn't but it doesn't mean that that was what I wanted or that I'm not sorry it came to that." She was blunt and then looked at her friend. "Really Johnny, I'm sorry." She said basically in a whisper.
"It'll be alright Jack, go home and start looking for Candace's father, if she comes back here, we'll send her after you." Kelly said almost dismissively, a blank sort of look on her face and Jack felt stung. One minute the older woman was worried about her, the next she was dismissing her. Confused…that didn't even explain the shock that Jack felt.
"Yeah, right, of course." Riddick felt tension flood Jack's shoulder muscles in a way she hadn't been tense before. "Again, I'm really sorry." Jack said almost formally before standing up and nodding, feeling numb. It felt like she had just been shown the door, that maybe she had stayed for a family that didn't want her any more. She wasn't, in truth, sure of what she had expected of Kelly but even in her imaginings of anger and worry or even shock, she hadn't expected being blanked at the end of it all.
"Let it go Jack." He whispered in her ear as he pushed a stray lock of hair behind it. She nodded and sighed as he settled his hand in the middle of her back and started to guide her out of the room.
"Johnny, why don't you go out and have a look for Candace and Damien? Riddick, why don't you go back to Jack's flat and let us two women have a little chat?" Kelly said as they were about to walked past the two Marks', catching Jack off guard enough to get a startled look from her.
"Jack?" Riddick's low voice was asking in a single word if she wanted to be left alone.
"Do you mind?" She looked up at his goggled face, wishing for a moment that she could see the look in his eyes that his goggles were hiding and he shook his head, his hand moving from her back to her hip, his fingers squeezing a light reassurance.
"I'll see you when you get home." He answered her, a smile touching the corners of his mouth as he placed a chaste kiss on her lips.
"See you later love." Johnny caressed his wife's face and both men left.
Jack stood awkwardly in the living room, looking and feeling not only uncomfortable but totally unsure of herself. Her only problem being that she didn't have any idea what Kelly wanted from her, she had already thought the woman and made herself clear with her shakes of the head and the blank expression. She cracked her knuckles nervously.
"Tea? Coffee?" Kelly asked after a moment.
"Tea would be nice." Jack nodded and followed Kelly through to the kitchen where she took a seat at the table. It felt so normal to just be sitting in Kelly's kitchen again that she didn't even think twice about nibbling on the grapes in the bowl that had been sat strategically in the center of the table to not only look pretty but to entice Kelly's family to eat something beside junk. It was a tactic that often worked better on Kelly's friends then her husband and son.
"I'm not angry at you about Kevin Jack, I'm sorry to say it but that man did have it coming to him." Kelly said in a tone that was meant to put Jack at ease as she put on the kettle. "But you should have known not to leave that girl alone for so long. I realize that the only example that you've had of raising a teenage girl is from Riddick looking after you but I would have thought that common sense dictated that much if your own experiences with him didn't tell you that at least."
"I know and I'm sorry and I realize that I shouldn't have done that but every time we thought about leaving, we got distracted again. Things just got heated so quickly…" Jack looked at the grape in between her fingers, her face turning slight red.
"You and Riddick are lovers now?" Kelly asked in a matter of factual tone that made Jack want to cringe but she was sure that it hadn't just been the quick kiss that had given the game away and it wasn't like she was trying to keep it a secret.
"I know you don't approve Kelly but-" Jack started somewhat uneasily.
"Stop right there Jack." Kelly poured boiling water in a teapot and set it along with two mugs on the tray in her lap before gliding over to the table and unloading her burden. "It doesn't matter if I approve or not as long as you're happy. I do however want to caution you if you'll let me."
"Caution me?" Jack raised her eyebrows.
"Yes, caution you." Kelly nodded.
"Fire away." Jack shrugged.
"Before you think it Jack, the age thing doesn't bother me, between Bret and my parents there was nearly a twenty year age gap and you know him far better then I but that's besides the point. There are a few things however that I do know about Riddick. He is a murderer and from the things that I've read and you've told me he's known to be quite the womaniser too. I don't want to see you hurt because he's gotten tired of you and moved on and I don't want to see you hunted because of him either."
"I'd hurt worse and be hunted anyway if he weren't here and he won't up and move on Kel, that's not Riddick." She said. "I can't explain it. He was gone and that was fine I guess but then he was back and I realized that I had needed him so badly while he wasn't there and the ache in my chest because of that I can't begin to describe to you." She was searching for words she couldn't find to explain what she was trying to say and Kelly gave her a knowing look.
"You're in love with him." She said simply, like it was the most normal and natural thing in the universes.
"Yea- What?" Jack looked dumbfounded, the way she had been tongue tied before didn't compare to the way she was at that moment. She couldn't have articulated if her life depended on it. How had they gotten from the fact that Kevin was dead to speculating on her feelings for Riddick?
"You've fallen in love Jack." Kelly reiterated and Jack shook her head wildly.
"No, I haven't." Jack shook her head, a deep frown on her face. "I'm not in love Kelly, I'm not all that sure about my feelings for him past a deep need and attraction, even that doesn't quite get at what I feel."
"That's because you're in love with him Jack. That's alright you know, perfectly normal."
"No, it's not alright Kelly because I'm not in love, you don't understand." She said stubbornly.
"Denial is a funny thing Jack and it's not good for you, that much I know from personal experience. I've been in love with Johnny since I was seventeen years old, I know love when I see love, you're not fooling me and I doubt greatly that you've fooled your man either, he's smart, he knows what's going on better then you think hun."
"No, Kelly, no! It wouldn't work. He doesn't do love, he cares yes and he feels attraction, who doesn't but not love. And I'm not exactly the most loveable person out there Kel." She had paled a few shades and a sliver of fear penetrated her mind. "Where love is concerned, Riddick runs a mile."
"I'm pretty sure you'll find him where he said he'd be."
"Kelly…"
"Which is why he's barely letting you out of his sight?"
"Oh stop making sense Kelly! I'm happy with what I have, don't make me want more then what I can have." She gripped her mug tightly and stared at the milky tea, the only way Kelly made it, Jack's mother would have called it silver tea. "I know what it's like to be loved and I will never forget what it feels like but I'm happy the way I am. I'm content with Riddick and what he can give me. I can live without being in love."
"No one can live without love. Not even Riddick. He rejoined the human race for the love of a teenage girl who could potentially get him hurt or killed or sent back to the prison that was his hell. He came back looking for that girl after she nearly did get him killed and found a far different woman who was as magnetic and alluring as the teenager had been, only in a totally different way. It happens perhaps more often then you would like to think, love draws the best or the worst out in people, it's got a habit of doing that."
"I know. Remember when Johnny killed that Merc? I got that he was strong and capable of all sorts of violence but he was so unshakable that I don't think I ever thought he would get violent and all of a sudden he was killing that man because he hurt you. Killing him one second and tenderly lifting you and carrying you out of there the next." The corners of Jack's mouth twitched slightly but not enough to form a smile.
"Yeah, I remember that too. Scared the shit out of me but made me feel hell of a lot better at the same time." Kelly nodded. "You must have been glad when Riddick killed Kevin."
"Glad that he was there, glad that he hadn't been too late. I was not glad that Kevin was dead." Jack answered with a shrug. "My parents didn't need to be in love to be happy. They were just the perfect high society match. Mama once told me that the only reason that her and papa had agreed to the match was because they were good friends, had been since they were kids."
"But they did love each other on a level I'm sure."
"On a level but then it could be argued that I love Joe and Johnny and Luke on a level."
"But who knows how long even that kind of love could have lasted if you hadn't been born. Without reason it could have fallen apart Jack. Just like any marriage that might have happened between you and Bret."
"What doesn't that mean?" Jack snapped, feeling slightly affronted. She was sick of watching herself be analyzed.
"That I'm not a fool. Bret loved you deeply but that doesn't mean that it would have worked because you didn't love him the same way back. I'm not blind Jack, though, I do believe that you would have tried and that you thought that him loving you would have held everything together as long as it was coupled with your willpower which I know is strong, but how long could your willpower have held everything together?" Kelly asked.
"Indefinitely. I don't let myself be ruled by pure emotion Kelly. Love doesn't make life a walk in the park, sometimes it's better without it because it doesn't hurt as badly." Jack shook her head.
"I'm not sure I would agree with you. At that time in Bret's life he was happy and I am forever grateful that he understood what love was before it was too late, before that man killed him or another man tried to." Kelly said with a shrug.
"Don't get sentimental on me Kel, you'll make me cry." Jack bit her lip.
"Then cry damnit! You never have done enough of that." Kelly laughed.
"I'm sorry I didn't love him like I should have Kel." Jack shook her head. "He really did deserve so much more then what he got." Bret had been one of the few good things in Jack's life and she would never deny the effect that he had had in shaping the woman she had become. At that time in her life she had needed someone to love her, someone to believe in her and Bret and facilitated that role without her even asking him too.
"Don't be sorry. He was happy."