Hello again, apologies for the short chapter, but I have to get things moving, and issues to cover.

Thank you people who reviewed, you made my day, several times. please keep reviewing, and i will keep writing. fair exchange.

on with the show!

Disclaimer: I don't own Pitch Black/ Riddick, however, if I owned Vin, I would be very happy.

Jack knew Riddick was looking for her, and he knew it to, she could tell by the way his footsteps could be heard as he walked, he was normally quiet. Jack ignored him and kept her head under the engine where she was trying to find out what had happened during the game of 'dodge the asteroid.'

They had sustained damage to the exterior of the ship, that couldn't be fixed for another five weeks when they reached Morse Prime, nothing seemed to be wrong with the engine, but Jack was making sure, not wanting to be blown up because of a loose bolt. What she did find however, was disturbing. She pulled a piece of metal from a part of the engine with great difficulty, where she had some experience with engines, not a lot, but enough to know that this didn't belong, then her memory triggered and she knew what it was.

"There you are." Said Riddick from the doorway, startling her as she hadn't heard him coming.

"Why is there a tracker hidden in the engine?" she asked, holding up the mechanism.

"What?" he asked. Walking over to her, he snatched the small metal device from her hands.

"Toombs." He said, anger filling his voice. Jack silently handed him a hammer and stood back as he placed the device on the ground and smashed it into little pieces.

"Well, that must have been how they found us." Jack commented after a few moments silence.

"Bastard must have had it put into the ship after I bought it, on the high chance he could capture us." Riddick mused.

"Didn't know who he was dealing with." Jack said, wiping the oil on her hands onto a rag.

"Fucker, I should have ghosted him when I had the chance." Riddick growled.

"Don't we all think that?" Jack said, pushing her hair of her face and walking from the engine room, Riddick followed. "Did you want something?" she asked.

"Wanted to know where you were." Riddick said. "You've been avoiding me."

"Yeah, I do that." She said, walking into the kitchen and closing the door behind her.

"Women." Riddick muttered as he walked back to the cockpit.

In the kitchen, Jack sat down and put her head in her hands, thinking. This couldn't keep going on between them, the stilted silence, the avoiding each other. The tension could be cut with a knife. Absent minded, she played with a stray lock of her hair as it fell over her eyes. She sat there and thought about the nightmares that had been occurring every night for the past week, T-2, the planet that had changed the lives of three people, and claimed the lives of many more.

Every night it had been the same dream, the monsters, the darkness and being left behind by Riddick, would he had left them there to die?

Jack didn't want to answer that question, the ones that needed answering, she wanted to find Imam, go back to New Mecca and forget about this, about the mercs, about Toombs. But then another problem arose, what of Riddick, could she forget about him? Could she stand watching him leave again?

"I'd say by the way your hair's cutting off the circulation in your finger, that you're thinking about something serious." Said Riddick from the doorway, watching her with his goggles eyes. Jack looked at her finger where her hair had been tightly wound around. She released the hair and looked up at Riddick.

"Just thinking." She said, not meeting his eyes.

"About?"

"What are doing?" she asked. "Finding Imam, getting away from Toombs, then what?"

"What do you want?" he asked.

"A little white house with a white picket fence and three neatly dressed children." Jack said sarcastically. In truth, she didn't know what she wanted.

"Are you sure?" he asked, in her ear, making her jump as she hadn't seen nor heard him move.

"No." She said sullenly. "Who knows what they want Riddick?" she asked.

"I do, I want you on this ship, where I know your safe." He said.

"I'm a big girl, I can handle myself." She said, walking towards the door.

"Are you sure about that?" he asked.

"I'm not sure about anything." She said, walking away.

Tombs looked at the screen and swore as the tracking device symbol, disappeared from the screen, they must have found it by now. Once again he was down to one ship with a seven-man crew. Riddick once told him that a four person crew was a fucking insult, but Toombs knew that all he needed was the girl, then Riddick would come crawling, why else hide away on a shitty little planet, other than to distract people away from her.

"Toombs." Came a voice of one of his crewmen.
"What?" he snapped.

"The records show that Riddick is headed towards the Morse system." The man said.

"My bets on Morse Prime." Said another crewmember. "The other planets aren't much, just seven little dumps floating around."

"Morse Prime it is then boys, and lady." He said in respect to the female crewmember. "Lets get it right this time." He muttered under his breath.

"Jack!" came a voice in her ear, she was having another nightmare, creatures jumped from the dark, surrounding her.

"Jack!" came the voice again. Jack sat up and swung at the shadows with her knife.

"Cool it Jack." Came Riddick's voice. "You're having a nightmare." Jack shook away the effects of sleep and lowered the knife she held.

"What did I tell you about sleeping with knives?" asked Riddick, his eyes shining in the darkness.

"Better than sleeping alone." Jack commented.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Riddick growled. Jack stood up and walked out of the room without saying anything.

Riddick growled and slammed his fist into the wall.

He found her in the cockpit, looking through the windows at the stars, her face was pale and emotionless, her eyes closed. Listening to her breathing, Riddick realised she had fallen asleep in the chair, something he had done more than once.

Bending down, he scooped up her light body and carried her back to her bedroom, laying her on the bed. He went to walk out of the room, but stopped when he heard her mumble something. Walking closer to the bed, she spoke again.

"Don't leave me." she murmured.

"I'm here, don't worry." Riddick said softly.

"Don't go." She murmured.

"I won't." he said, lying down next to her and cradling her in his arms. Jack slept peacefully, not stirring as she slept without nightmares.

The next morning, she was once again in the engine room, fixing something that was making a lot of noise, she had woken up to find Riddick in her bed with his arms around her, and that had startled her. Rather than wake him, she let him sleep, instead addressing the issue of something come loose in the engine.

Picking up a spanner, she made an adjustment and then listened to it, satisfied that it was running smoothly. Wiping her face off, she unknowingly transferred a smudge of oil from her hands to her cheek.

Packing away the tools she had been using, she left the room and narrowly avoided crashing into Riddick's bare chest.

"forget a shirt this morning?" she asked politely, walking past him.

"You should have woken me." he said.

"Why?" she asked. "Might as well enjoy sleeping in while you can."

"What about you?" he asked.

"What about me?" Jack asked as she turned around to look at him.

"Do you know you've been having nightmares every night this week?" he asked.

Jack did know it, she had the bruises under her eyes from lack of sleep and was constantly plagued by fatigue.

"I'm fine." She muttered, storing the tools away in a cupboard.

"It's T-2, isn't it?" he asked.

"Not exactly something you could just forget." She said.

Riddick took a step forward to her, and raised a hand to her face, she involuntarily flinched.

"You have oil on your face." He remarked, Jack jerked her face from his hand and used a cloth to wipe down her face.

"I'm not going to hurt you kid." Riddick said following her to the bathroom.

"I learned not to trust anyone." She said, looking in the mirror as she wiped the oil away.

"And who taught you that?" he asked.

"You did, when you left me alone." She said, walking past him and up to the gym.

An hour later she had worked up a sweat continually attacking the punching bag. Her hand had started aching again, the cuts were now half-healed scars but still protested from the vicious workout as she slammed her fist into the bag repeatedly.

Taking a break, she lent against the wall and closed her eyes, concentrating on her breathing, her lungs hurt from holding her breath so much while she worked out, a habit she had yet to break.

Unwrapping the bandages, she looked at the scars, flexing her hand to test the pain, content that they were not going to split open again.

"This isn't going to work itself out." Riddick said from his place against the doorframe.

"What isn't?" she asked.

"This, your anger at me."

"I wasn't aware that you were conscious of other people's emotions Riddick." Jack said angrily.

"Fuck it Jack!" he said angrily. "I'm trying here, I'm putting up with your shit, sorry I left, sorry I saved your ass from the mercs, I made sure Imam would take care of you, I knew you would be safe, what else could I have done Jack?" he yelled at her.

"You could have stayed." She whispered. "Instead of leaving me to deal with the memories and nightmares on my own."

Riddick walked over her and stood above her.

"You should have stayed away from me." he said softly.

"You were all I had." She whispered.

"What about Imam?" he asked.

"Imam was great, but he didn't understand." Jack said quietly.

"Understand what?" he asked.

"What I was going through, he thought your leaving was the best thing in the world, he thought that once you left I would be a quiet little studious girl. Well I wasn't, and he didn't understand that."

"Some things we can't change Jack, I'm sorry I left, but I'm not sorry I came back." He said, walking out of the room. Jack slumped down and put her head on her knees. They had over a month to reach Morse Prime, a month with no cryo chambers, alone with Riddick on a ship.

Standing up, Jack returned to working out with the punching bag, overtime she punched it, or kicked it, she worked through a new issue, in no time at all, she felt much better.

Dont worry, more is on the way, most likely tomorrow.