"But...But you're a dead man Riddick!" she gaped at him.
"Obviously, I ain't dead kid." He stretched himself out, grabbing a towel and beginning to dry off.
She let her eyes dip down below his waist and she gasped, turning away quickly, "Get dressed!" She hissed.
"All I got is my pants, my shirt isn't in a wearable condition anymore. As you know." She blinked as she tried to realize what he meant by that, remember the blood on her face suddenly and scrubbing it off in the sink quickly. "I'll get you a shirt then, I'll be right back." She walked out of the bathroom casually, as if all he'd done to her had never happened, and she was the stupid little girl following him like a lost puppy all over again.
She came back, handing him a black muscle shirt, that was awfully Familiar.
He raised a brow, "This is the shirt I had on the skiff..."
She looked at him, "Yeah, I know...I sewed it, see." She pointed to the stitch work.
"Why'd you hold onto it so long?" he set it to the side, pulling on his pants shamelessly.
She covered her eyes, "It's all I had to hold onto...to remember you by. It was like a security blanket I guess..."
He smirked, "You can look now, I'm decent." She removed her hand, looking at the hole in his chest, "Do you want me to sew that up for you?"
"Sure. So Lil Jack held on when I left huh?" He said in a cocky tone.
"Of course not, I held onto the ideal that I was strong enough to get on without you." She went to fetch a first aid kit, the ex-con moving fluidly after her. "You never did tell me how you survived a crash, Riddick."
"Eh, easy enough. I had a merc on my ship, dressed him up like me and let the fucker crash and burn. Now that they think I'm dead, I've got a little time to pay you and the holy man a visit. How is Imam anyway? Still religious?"
"Of course he is, he saw a miracle on that planet. A selfish bastard murderer showed compassion. Why shouldn't he still be religious?" she rolled her eyes.
Mmm, Sassy. He had definitely missed her. "Good to see you haven't changed, looks like leaving you was for the best. I could imagine how dirty your mouth'd be if you hung out with someone like me for five years." He sat down in one of the chairs.
She glared, oh no. He would NOT bring up him leaving her. "Why did you leave me Riddick?" she let loose on her emotions.
"Jack, don't even start." Riddick growled, "You know I ain't the type of guy cut out for babysitting twelve year olds. You needed more than a guy like me could give, got it? It's easy for me to go without food or heat or nice things. It's different for you. Besides, you're a woman. Women are too messy to travel with for long." he snorted.
"Is that it? That's my closure!? After five years of suffering, that's what you give me? You know I ran away from home for a reason! Mom and dad always hit me, Riddick! One day, mom got sassy to my dad, so he tied her up and let her burn right in front of me! Then he tried to kill me, you see these?!" she jerked her arms in front of his eyes to let him see the scars. "But I killed him instead Riddick...I got him back. I was so much older than a twelve year old, when I met you. Shazza found me in some back alley, saved me from being raped. That's why I was there, that's why I was with her. Then she died...the only person who ever cared about me died. Then there you were Riddick, you were this hope for me, I wanted to be with you! I'd starved myself before, I can force my body into doing shit like that! Don't tell me I wouldn't have understood. I was perfectly capable of watching my own back as well, by the way."
He ignored her story, "Yeah well you were still a dumb kid." That's it, don't let her know she stirred things inside of you that you'd never even felt before Riddick, good boy. "Besides, You had kid shit to do. Go to school and all that."
She glared, "Oh go to hell Riddick, I don't know why I even cared..." she shook her head as she began to stitch up his chest, finishing within a few moments.
He smirked, "You care huh?"
"I said go to h-hell." She stiffled a yawn, her sleepiness taking her over once more.
"You should go to bed kid, you look like death warmed over." he snorted, "I'll pass out here on the couch, give Imam a good scare tomorrow morning..."
She nodded, hesitating before hugging him suddenly, "I did miss you Riddick...goodnight."
He stiffened as he was hugged- Oh god, how should he respond? Should he...Should he hug her back? No, no that'd give away too much emotion. Instead he settled for grunting and patting her once on the back, "Night." He watched her disappearing up the stairs, his eyes tracing the curves of her slender young frame, down to her ass and over the backs of her long legs. To be honest with himself, he never did want to leave her. He wanted to bring her with him...it was all in Imam's words, the moment Riddick admitted it to the holy man. Riddick remembered that conversation too well. Imam had made him look like a dog, telling him he could never care for Jack right. There was a mean side to the old man, and Riddick had resented that he made him look like the bad guy...even if he was pretty bad.
Jack had thought he didn't want her, and it ate him up inside. He did care for her, it was the only reason he came back. Screw Carolynn, she was weak. Jack on the other hand, she was fresh blood. It would be all too easy to mold her. Make her into a lithe killing machine like himself. He should have killed Imam. Just killed the holy man and taken Jack. He could picture it now, teaching her his ays, his skills. How to kill with a single blow to the spine or skull. As he lay back on the couch and closed his eyes, his sleep drifted over him, and be dreamt of the ordeal.
"Mr. Riddick, I refuse to let you take Jack with you, she is a growing girl. She has needs, emotional and physical that...a man of your standard would just not understand." the holy man had said, unkindly.
"So old man, I can take care of her. I took care of myself, how hard can a kid be?" he snapped back, resenting where this conversation was headed.
"Mr. Riddick. I will NOT allow you to take Jack with you.", his voice was low and dangerous. "If you try to take her along with you, I will see to it you are killed."
Riddick couldn't believe his ears. He supposed the man was insane with greif that his three kids on the planet had all been killed, but that was NOT his fault. He couldn't make it up to him by just giving him Jack. Jack was not some little replacement doll, she was a kid. How was it that Riddick understood that better than him? But the threat pressed. If he tried to take Jack, Imam would have all the mercs up his ass. Which he wasn't too worried about, but it would not be a safe place for Jack. So Riddick just gave him a death glare, "Alright, Holy man. But know this. One day I will come back, and I will take Jack with me. She'll come on her own. Jack can do that, you know."
The holy man glared but said nothing. He turned and ignored him, going back to prayer. Riddick looked over at Jack who had been sleeping the whole time peacefully. He whispered an apology before going back to piloting their escape skiff. Fucking Holy Man...
Riddick's dreams strayed from his past to Jack as he slept through the rest of the night, enjoying the adulterous dreams that began to present themselves to the sleeping con.
Upstairs in her bed, Jack was just falling into the REM cycle of her sleep, dreaming again. But it was if the moment she looked into Riddick's eyes again, a seed had been planted deep in her brain. Now as her dreams wore on, the seed burst into a vine and crawled through her memories, 'weeding' through them, pardon the pun. The vine grabbed eagerly onto one and jerked it into Jack's dream, thrusting her back that night before they landed. She could hear Riddick and Imam talking, she heard the threats...Imam had been the reason Riddick left her! In her dream Jack flung herself up from her bed, and clutched onto Riddick, begging him to ignore Imam. If only she'd done so that night. Now she knew the truth though, it wasn't Riddick she had to be mad at. It was Imam, he'd spend the last five years in a lie.
She recoiled from him, rejected him immediately. Never again would she smile kindly to the holy man, he was through in her brain. She was leaving with Riddick this time. She loved him. She knew everything about him. The first year after he left, she was quiet and meek, hardly speaking to anyone. Most of her time was spent, hacking databases, finding news articles, every piece of information there was on Richard B. Riddick, she knew it. It was to the point where she had his murder methods down to an art. Men he killed the slowest, the most painful ways. Mercs were the slowest of all. Females were killed rather quickly, except for a few she'd noted, all mercs. That meant they deserved it, at least in her eyes. He never killed a child, not once that had been known of anyway. She knew what murders were his, and the ones that were just copy cats taking a blame free ride on his back. She had to wonder if those copy cats ended up on Riddick's shit list, one of the bloody victims she read about.
Two years after he had closed the skiff door on her smiling face and she was still in denial. "He'll be back Imam, this year. I can feel it...he's coming back for me. I'm fourteen now, practically an adult." She'd tell Imam proudly, her voice full of cheer and hope. But he'd just tear her down, send her back to the hole she'd dug to hide her emotions. "No child, he's never coming back for you. He was a bad man." No he wasn't, he saved them! She loved him! He wasn't bad, he was just....he was Riddick.
Three years since her escape from that alien planet, and she was wearing his shirt to sleep in. Dreams of his murders dancing through her dreams, along with dreams of him loving her...mentally and physically. It hurt still, but she was about to suppress it well enough. Imam didn't like the fact she kept his shirt, but she always hid it away from him, so he wouldn't be able to throw it out while she was in school. Many a time he demanded she give it to him, and still she refused. Jack would not give up the only thing she had of him.
Four years had passed since she met her God, and she was rebelling against him. All the research she did on him, the pictures, news clips, print outs, everything had gone into a box with his shirt. She'd packed that box into the back of her closet and looked at it with a stern glare whenever she'd open the door to get dressed. A week after that she was back to sleeping in his shirt, trying to ignore the way he whispered in her head. "Go for the Sweet spot, just left of the spine. The abdominal aorta. A metallic taste, human blood...sort of copperish..." Riddick would never leave her alone, and she had to face it.
Now it turns out, that five years after parting ways from Riddick, he was not the one to make her suffer all those years. It had been her guardian, Imam. The man who pretended to love her, woke her with a smile, made her lunch every day. He was the man who made her ache inside. Imam had caused everything to be so shitty...Riddick was cleansed in her head, and she began to realize she loved him more than she ever knew. Richard...she'd never leave his side again, and Imam would not touch her.
She blinked awake the next morning, sun filtering through the window, and her eyes narrowed against it. "Imam..." she whispered resolutely, "How to make you pay..."
((AUTHOR'S NOTE : HELLS YEAH, three revised chapters in one eaaarrrllyyyy mornin'? I am on a roll. Not doing anything for the next four days, so hey! I might actually finish this revision within a few days, how about that.))