AN: It's been a great ride. Thanks to you all.


"Riddick?" Jack asked, interrupting the silence of the car ride. She hadn't spoken since her encounter with Dom. Rick hadn't encouraged her otherwise.

"Yeah?"

"What that guy said about a virus that could wipe out non-humans, do you think that was true?"

"Jack, he just made stuff up as he went. Some of it was true, some he 'improvised' on the spot. They didn't want me to help them find the Hunter Grazner. I know they could find it themselves. The wreck was probably picked clean years ago. Project Destiny is real enough, and if he wasn't working on it then he convinced someone otherwise. The Resistance didn't send a guild assassin after him for no reason. Whatever he wanted from me, it wasn't coordinates for that particular wreck. He wanted something else..."

Jack looked over at him, backpack hugged tight to her chest. "Like what?" she asked, sounding small.

Riddick shook his head slowly. "I don't know. Thanks to Dominic Conte we'll probably never find out, which is just the way I like it. Whatever it was, I doubt it would've been pleasant."

"So, you think Dom's part of the Resistance?" she asked, confused. Jack had heard of the Resistance before that evening. They were mostly survivors of the extermination. They'd bound together, bent on overthrowing the Empire. Before that night she hadn't realized they had enough money or power to do much more than flee the bounty hunters and military forces chasing them.

"No. I think Dom's an assassin with motivation beyond mere money. He said he was an orphan, and I think that's very likely. If I ever saw him again I'd have a question or two to ask him, from one killer to another."

"Like what kind of questions?"

His silver eyes came to rest briefly on her form and she could almost feel her skin cool wherever his mercury gaze touched. "I'd like to ask him if it was his mother or his father who got stabbed through the chest when the troops came to kill them. Or maybe it was someone else he cared about. There has to be some reason why he always aims for the heart on a kill shot."

"Oh," she said, sounding stupid to her own ears. Another silence passed between them, but she didn't notice, too busy staring out at the stars and thinking about how the night looked so much like the first one she'd seen on the planet months ago.

Back then she never would've guessed she'd end up leaving with Riddick at her side...

"I don't suppose Imam will approve of us living alone together in an apartment, will he?" she said, testing.

Besides hearing him shift in his seat ever so slightly, no response came from him.

Jack let her eyes slide closed and her forehead rested against the glass of the window.

Damn you, Dominic. Damn you.


All the King's Horses, and all the King's Men...
Couldn't break Jack's heart, but Riddick still can...

She made it simple. She stood back when they reached the ship Riddick had arranged passage on for their trip. They'd arrived almost too late, and most of the other passengers were already aboard. He and the pilot were half way up the ramp before he noticed she hadn't followed. When he turned around she mouthed that she was sorry.

He came down briefly and listened in silence to her few words of explanation.

We both know I don't belong with you...

For a second she couldn't believe she'd said those words. From the day she'd met him she'd loved him with all her being. Now it was time to let him go, leave him first.

It only would've hurt worse if she'd let him become the betrayer yet again.


Dom kept the lights low on his ship. The ramp was down when she arrived, but as soon as she got on board it closed behind her. She stowed her bags in the open compartments next to the door and then went forward, finding the cabin for the first time.

"Strap in," was all he said.

She obeyed, not quite able to believe what she'd just done. Was it a mistake?

Jack glanced over at the man beside her and when she caught his eye he smiled, just fractionally. He was glad to have her along, glad for her company.

His fingers flew over switches and he spoke fluently in radio gibberish. He had everything under control. Moments later they were cleared to fire up main engines and leave at will.

"Godspeed," said traffic control, and that was about the only part of the entire communication Jack understood over the static and strange lingo.

"You ever want to be an explorer, Jack?" Dom asked while waiting for the drive to warm up.

She nodded, swallowing twice to rid her throat of the dryness that had settled there. "I always did. That's one reason I got on the Hunter Grazner in the first place. I wanted to see the universe. I got a little sidetracked, but I think maybe I could do it, live this sort of life."

He chuckled, and for a brief second she felt comfortable with him again. Then she realized she hadn't felt uncomfortable since she'd gotten on the ship. She still had a million questions for him about what had happened that night, about his true identity, and who he worked for. At least half of them were about the man he'd killed that night. She just figured it could wait. For one night, everything could wait.

The boyish grin she'd come to know so well softened his black eyes to the point where she could look at his face without staring. It almost surprised her when he reached over and took her hand. "Then let's go be explorers, babe."

She smiled back at him, squeezing his palm, almost hesitating in releasing it from her grasp.

Dom brought up the running lights and she finally saw him standing outside. Riddick had placed himself in front of the ship. The sudden brightness caught him off guard, and he had to throw one forearms across his eyes. He stood there, half blinded, shouting something, although not seemingly in anger.

She looked over to observe Conte's reaction only to find his features looking strangely serene.

"What's he saying?" she asked, her voice reflecting the calm she felt inside.

For a long moment he turned to just look at her, and then his demon eyes returned to the view outside. A low growl rumbled through his chest; a pleasant sound, though definitely inhuman.

The cocky half-grin never left his face. "He's saying—'I belong with you.'"

She nodded, her insides turning strangely numb. "What should I do?" she asked, reaching out to touch the plastic shield in front of her, looking out at the man asking her to go with him to New Mecca.

Dom leaned back a little in his seat, considering, the placid smile still shaping his features. "You ever watch a sunset, Jack? They're beautiful, absolutely gorgeous, but I really never appreciated them until I went to prison. See, there are no sunsets in slam. There's no open spaces and no fresh air. Just death and disease. I found out that when a man leaves a place like that and regains those basic things of life, he hangs on to them with all his strength so he won't lose them again.

"You'll never know the things men like Riddick and I have seen during our lives, you'll never know those kinds of places of complete despair. One thing you will know, because I'm about to tell you, is that in prison there are no Jacks. In most of the universe we've known, there are no Jacks. There are sunsets, and spring times, and some of the most beautiful girls you've ever seen, but those things aren't always enough.

"You may think you're plain, just another face in the crowd; but Riddick and I both know there's only a one in a million shot that men like us would ever find another woman like you.

"Someone we know will never betray us.

"Someone who'll fight for us against any odds.

"Someone who can put us back together again when we fall..."