You can lead a horse to water

Summery: Riddick killed her parents when she was a kid. Now Riddick has to put his life in her hands in order to survive. Will she change to understand his past actions and will he change to become human?


Disclaimer:

All the characters are lent

I do not own a single cent

So please don't sue

I'm begging you… festive, right?


Chapter two: Getting there…

Frizz was banged awake by gunfire and noise from the control bridge. She got up, pulled a pair of cargoes on and the only sweater she had left that would fit over her stomach. She ran down the metal stairs and down through the dining area. When she arrived at the bridge she had the tip of a gun pressed to the back of her head. She was pushed forwards into the control room. Here she saw five men, most likely pirates, in the process of taking over their ship.

"Female, Roberts." The man with the gun said and a grey-haired man looked up from some papers and gave her a quick look.

"Pregnant." The grey-haired declared dryly. "We didn't have pregnant woman in the ships when I was a merc."

"She's our best gunner." Fred said. He was tied and lay huddled together on the floor. He was bleeding, but it didn't seem serious. Then Frizz spotted Steve's green shirt. He was thrown aside and lay terribly still. "Steve?" She said, falling to the floor, ignoring the guy with the gun. "Steve?" She crawled to his side and turned him over. He had bullet holes in his chest and stomach and blood ran from his mouth. She turned to the grey-haired man and flung her self at him. "How could you? How could you, you sonuvabitch? He's fourteen!" Two pirates grabbed her and pulled her off Roberts.

"Watch it, little lady. Pregnant or not, you will behave properly in my company." Roberts said and looked at Steve's dead body. "He shouldn't have been playing with adults."

Then Roberts nodded and the two pirates tied her hands and sat her down on the floor between Bendy and Fred. Another man entered and went strait to Roberts. "Mister Razzy. What is it?"

Razzy put his hands in his pocket and looked at Bendy. "What do we do about Riddick, sir?"

Roberts looked around in the control room and seemed to estimate the safety onboard. "Too dangerous for a ship this size and capacity. So I say we kill him."

Frizz felt a cold chill run down her spine. If they killed Riddick years of hunting him would mean nothing. If they killed Riddick she would never know why. "You can't just kill him." She said.

Roberts cast her a bemused, but somehow acidly look. "Of course we can. He'd do us the same favour had it been the other way around."

"But he needs to be sent to slam." She continued, very carefully stressing every word.

"Look lady," Razzy said. "He'll break out and kill us all eventually. Unless you want to extend a hand in friendship to the guy, which would be really stupid if you want to keep that hand…"

"Let's all be reasonable now." Bendy said calmly. "You take our ship, at least give us Riddick so we can collect the bounty and start over. Jesus, we've got a pregnant lady here."

Roberts just smiled at Bendy. "Look, you all get to live, that's pretty fair."

"But we've got nothing." Bendy exclaimed. Roberts drew a gun and shot Bendy in the chest. Frizz swore and backed away in shock. Next to her Fred puked.

"You all get to live." He looked around at the remains of Bendy's crew. "How does that sound?"

No one moved, but in the end Fred nodded. "Sounds fair."

Roberts smiled to Fred like a gentleman would after making an agreement. "I'll drop you all off at the next dock. And don't play tricks, or you're all dead." He looked at the screen showing the cargo room, where Riddick was safely tied up.

"Get them out of here." Roberts ordered. Frizz was lifted off the floor and half dragged, half carried back to the dining area because her legs just wouldn't work. The four remaining crew members stared at each other. They had lost one during the hunt on Riddick and now they had lost Steve and their Captain. What would happen to them when they were dumped off at some docking port with nothing but the clothes they were wearing?

Frizz' thoughts were another place in the future, though. She already had a plan and she knew it would cost the lives of her crew mates. But Frizz hadn't taken this job to make friends, she told her self. She was in it for one reason – Riddick.


Frizz had met Bendy four years earlier when she was working at a prison transport under a captain called Friboedy. The prisoners had broken out and taken Frizz captive, and Bendy's crew had come to Friboedy's aid. Bendy found her in the engine room where the convicts held her tied up. She managed to wriggle her way out of the handcuffs they had put on her and hit one of the convicts in the head with the heavy handcuffs just as he was about to shoot Bendy.

After that she came to work on Bendy's ship. Bendy said he had gotten his name because he had once snaked out of some chains in his earlier years, but he had never seen someone wriggle out of handcuffs like she had.

And had Bendy still been alive right then, he would perhaps have asked her to do what she did now.

Slowly and with out much effort she wriggled the handcuffs off and stretched her arms. Then she untied the ropes around her feet and snug over to the door. The others were fast asleep, and she left the dining area without looking back at them. They were dead either way, she told her self. Roberts wouldn't let them live. It was the same in the old days, when the enemy killed a leader; he would also kill all of the sons to avoid getting enemies who wanted revenge. Roberts wouldn't let the crew live, because if they ever got a ship, they would spent the rest of their lives hunting him down.

She found the gun under her bed and hurried down to the cargo room in the dark and closed the door behind her and locked it. Bendy's ship was build for safety. The emergency skiff was kept in the cargo room, so that if a convict would escape from his ropes, against odds, he could steal it and leave without killing the crew. Bendy always said safety came before money, and now he was dead.

"Riddick?" She knew where he was, but she couldn't see him. "Riddick?" he didn't answer, but slowly her eyes adjusted to the dark and she could see his body. He was still tied safely to the ion poll in the back. She stepped closer. "You came back." He said in that husky voice. She stopped dead. Then she bowed down and took off his blindfold.

"Roberts' crew is going to kill you." She whispered. He growled. "I bet they are." He smiled to himself. "Those motherfuckers don't like me too much."

"Any particular reason?" she asked, he smiled again.

"Did you just come to rub it in?" he said and moved "Or are you going to let me go?"

"Why would I let you go?" she hissed as quietly as she could.

"Because if you don't, you'll never know why."

She looked at his chains. She didn't have the key, but she had something almost as good. To her left she found a cutting torch and lit it with her lighter. He watched her carefully, her every step, every move. "You know how to use that, Frizzy?" he asked.

She looked at him acidly. "What does that matter? Even if you lose an arm, you can still talk."

He laughed. His booming laughter filled the cargo room and she swore at him. "Keep it down you stupid motherfucker. Didn't they teach you anything in killer-class? Like keep it down or you'll get caught?"

He smiled. "Then hurry, Frizzy."

"Don't call me that." she said heatedly. "Only Fred called me Frizzy."

"Is he dead now?" Riddick asked, trying to show some half-hearted concern.

"He will be, when Roberts' crew discovers that I've ran off with you." She said and started burning the chains off. It took her seconds, then he was free. She backed away, still armed with the burning torch.

"Can you pilot?" he asked and looked her over. She was skinny except for the stomach and looked fragile. Not like a pilot at all.

She shook her head. "No, I've never piloted in my life."

Riddick sighed and stepped over to the skiff. "Then what the hell do I need you for?" he said and got in the cockpit.

"'Cause I'm the one with the gun." She said and stepped up next to the pilot seat with the gun Fred had given her, pointing at Riddick's head.

He turned his head and looked at her. "Jump in."

She slammed the release button for the cargo gates with her hand and jumped into the seat next to Riddick. The cargo doors opened and Riddick took the skiff out of the ship and the two disappeared into the night.

"So what's the plan Captain?" Riddick asked and looked at her. Her hands were sweaty and she was shaking. Riddick noticed, but didn't comment on it. Instead he started playing with her. "So. You left your crew mates behind. Even Fred. You know he really cared about you."

"Shut up!" she hissed, but Riddick continued.

"They all seemed to really love you. Did you know them for long?" she looked at him as if he was hitting her in the face.

"I said shut the fuck up!" she hissed. "Don't you dare speak about them."

"Hey, I ain't the one who wrote their death petition!"

"Just shut up. Shut up!" she said. Her hands were shaking violently and she had troubles looking him in the eyes. He smiled, let her sit and think for awhile.

Then he looked at her. "You've killed those guys, Frizzy. Just like you killed the farther of that child you're carrying." She looked at him, shocked. How could he know?

Riddick smiled and she knew that he hadn't known. He had guessed, and her shocked expression had confirmed that he had been right. "You're just as much a killer as I am Frizzy. Every bit as cold."

He had hit her with something worse than bullets, and taking the gun from her hand was too easy. Riddick put the gun away out of her reach and watched her, as she leaned back in her seat and cried "I think you had a question Frizzy." He said in the end. Frizz looked at him, still sobbing. To be honest, she hadn't expected to live this long, but for now it didn't seem like Riddick cared to kill her. Maybe he was waiting until he got his hands on a really big knife. She pulled her self together and sat up strait in the seat. She waited until she was sure she could speak with out her voice failing her.

"I want to know why you killed my parents." She said. But Riddick just shook his head.

"You have been waiting fifteen years for this, Frizz. Now, ask the right question."

She looked out the window. They were leaving the planet. She sighed and looked at her hands. "Why didn't you just kill me? You let me live then, and you aren't killing me now."

"I might still." He said, then he smiled. "Had no reason to." He said and looked at her.

"You had no reason not to." She said and looked into his silvery eyes, for the first time without fear.

Riddick looked away and seemed to be thinking. In the end he didn't answer her. "I can't take you along Frizz. You would slow me down."

"They'll kill me." She objected.

Riddick just shook his head. "Not my problem."

"Don't you ever think about anyone else but yourself?" she said, voice high-pitched.

"Not that often, no." He turned the skiff and set it down at an off-planet docking station. He pushed her out through the cargo gate in the back of the skiff, and looked at her, as she was standing there, freezing and scared. Then he threw her the gun.

"Here, you keep this. Looking at this place I'd say you'll need it more than me." Then he closed the gate and took off. She looked after him as he flew away and knew just then, that he hadn't answered her question. So she was back to square one, no answers, no Riddick, no nothing. She turned on her heals and left the docking port.


Eamon:
It's really kinda funny. My sister Cornelia came home from college and read my new Riddick fanfics. She had to see Pitch Black and CoR to make sense of them, and when she was done she looked at me like "Are you insane?" and asked why all those women would die for a guy like Riddick, even in my stories. Didn't know what to tell her. If you don't get it, you don't get it. That simple.

So what do you think of this chapter, this whole story. I usually hate made up characters, and avoid reading fics with them in, especially when they are the main character. So, it's a bit odd for me writing one.

But I like Frizzy. My kind of cold bitch. I hope she makes it, but you can never be sure…