11. Backwards Glance
Riddick wanted some time alone to think. Zemma followed him to the captain's cabin but didn't say a word when he threw himself into the one overstuffed chair. She dragged her fingertips lightly along his arm as she passed him and lay down on the bed. Good enough.
He liked that she wasn't overly chatty. When she spoke it was because she had something to say, not because she needed to fill the air. And she didn't demand constant verbal reinforcement. Sometimes just a look was enough.
Jack, on the other hand, never seemed to shut up when she was a kid and wasn't much better now. She still seemed like a kid to him with her constant smart-ass talk. He was never going to hear the end of it for leaving her in cryo so long.
Riddick took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Zemma moved on the bed, turning her head to look at him. He could see the shine of her eyes, invisible to anyone without the lenses, for a moment before she settled back again. She was waiting for him.
'I waited over a decade for you…'
He hadn't thought about her age until she said that to him. She'd seemed so young when he first saw her; as Min she had been successfully playing the part of an addled child-woman. When he broke her protective covering off there was still such an emotionally young woman hiding inside that he hadn't thought of her as his own age. Let alone a year older than him. But she'd actually been conceived and born on Fury.
He'd been conceived in a test tube, apparently. If you could call being cloned the same thing as a natural creation of life. Unnatural was how he'd felt his whole life; a misplaced experiment? That seemed to sum up the whole of his perception of himself in the universe.
Until he met Zemma. Not Min, but Zemma. Min was the mask; Zemma was a person who never evidenced fear of him, never stared at his mutant eyes in either disgust or fascination. Never shied away from the animal in him. Never falsified her intent to use him for her own aims and didn't balk at being used for his.
'You don't have to say it… just make me feel it.'
Other women had been as to the point about wanting his body; none with the total innocence, few with the complete abandon, as she had. Would she still want a mere copy of another man?
'Sister, they don't know what to do with just one of me.'
Were there others out there, not just like him, but others that were exactly like him?
For a little while, on the Basilica, Riddick hadn't felt alone in the universe. But he was wrong to tell Zemma that she was no more Furyan than him. He wasn't Furyan at all. He was a clone of a Furyan. A product. Like Jack.
Jack might think she knew her origins, but Riddick knew better. Riddick had done some digging of his own. He knew she was a clone: genetically engineered, someone's experiment. Which part, which half of the whole ill begotten conspiracy, he didn't know for sure. Carmen had insisted she carried the biological antidote and he couldn't fault her logic: they, or They, would want the weapon back unharmed. His mission to kill Carmen's daughter seemed proof that that child was not the threat.
But there was another, still out there, who was.
Of course, he could be wrong, completely wrong. That's why he was taking no chances with Jack. She might not be the one Carmen gave birth to… she might be the one who was meant to carry the plague. He didn't want her exposed to it just to find out.
Zemma's slow, regular breathing quickened and a groan escaped her. She'd fallen asleep and was starting to have another bad dream.
"Mommy…." A tiny voice, younger and more fragile than the mask he knew as Min. "Why are they falling?"
Riddick suspected he knew what Zemma was dreaming about. She had told him that some Furyan women, devastated at the loss of their children, sometimes at their own hand, had thrown themselves from the highest point in the breeder ship. But she could remember that before, why was it tormenting her now? And why did it seem to be triggered from going outside?
Zemma was softly crying in her sleep. Riddick stood and approached the bed, intent on shaking her awake or maybe comforting her in her sleep. Before he moved more than a step in her direction the crying stopped.
"Yes, I see it."
He waited.
"It's beautiful." The dream child sighed.
Zemma quieted for just a moment before the fast paced breathing started again. "Mother?"
An older voice? An older Zemma being remembered?
"No!" Soft anguish, but no tears. "I'm sorry, Mama."
At least, like 'Mommy', he thought it must be 'Mama'. The translator Don had rigged up for him to learn Furyan did not cover the normal verbal shorthand a native speaker picks up. Don had been teaching him some of the more common slang terms. This seemed to be the foreshortened version, a child's version, of the word 'mother'.
Zemma's breathing sped up again. As Riddick took the few short steps to the bed she sat bolt upright. He didn't see the shine that meant her lenses were up so wasn't sure if she was awake.
"Zemma?" He asked quietly. "You with me?"
She was still panting a little, as if trying to catch her breath. "What?"
"You awake?"
"Yes?" Her breath caught in her throat. "What?"
"Bad dreams?" He sat on the edge of the bed and let his hand wander up and down her leg over her cargo pants.
Should make her buy some real clothes, next stop we make.
He saw her lenses twitch up. "You were having bad dreams… about your mother?"
"Oh." She pulled her legs up, away from his touch, and wrapped her arms around them, her chin on her knees. "I killed her," she whispered. "Did I tell you that?"
"No." He decided not to take it personal that she had pulled away from him. When he reached out again she didn't flinch. When he pulled her towards him she didn't resist. He wiped her face with the palm of his hand.
"I was crying again?" She sounded a little disgusted with herself. "I never cried this much before I met you," slightly sullen and a little mystified.
He took it as a compliment though. He knew she had the self-control to not cry at all. But like her first hesitant smiles, and attempts to banter back when he teased her, it showed her trust in him.
That trust had made him a little uncomfortable at first; like her drunken admission that she wanted to bed him. The fact that she was a virgin should have been obvious once he understood that the Purifier was her father, not her lover. She had proved herself calm and mature in so many ways that until she admitted that she wanted to seduce him, and didn't know how, he hadn't fully realized she was still just a girl living in a no man's land.
He hadn't wanted a relationship. Had so many times in the past decided he could not and should not have one. He seldom used the same lover twice. Dana had been the only 'sister' whom he had returned to regularly. She hadn't wanted to use his manhood at all, but taught him to use the rest of his body, his hands and his mouth, and had never touched him there at all. His brothers had joked that his reputation had brought even a dyke to his bed, and pestered him for his secret.
He'd thought of Dana, after Zemma's almost desperate plea to become a woman with him. He'd thought he might have to be cruel afterwards, to curb any pubescent fantasies about their relationship. He'd thought he could be the cool and collected teacher to Zemma that Dana had been to him.
But there had been no awkwardness, no gushing romanticism. She'd kissed him lightly and thanked him sweetly. Then flown from his bed without a backward glance. And into the arms of another man.
She'd been so devastated at the carnage in her suite, he could see that familiar look, the one most newbies had the first time they killed. Yet she stayed focused, and wouldn't back down from him. He'd been impressed. Pleased, even.
Then she cried out her regrets to one animal for her fascination of another animal. She let a complete stranger comfort her, and whisk her away. Without a backward glance.
He didn't believe Jaron had designs on Zemma. Jaron spoke as if he knew Riddick and Zemma were lovers that needed protecting from the designs of their common enemy. Riddick hadn't tried to change his mind about the misconception. He didn't question himself about why.
She avoided him completely and he should have been relieved. Jaron's plan meant Zemma would understand where their relationship stood. He should have been relieved…
In the Now, Zemma wrapped her arms around his waist, her head on his lap and against his stomach; perhaps dozing again, or perhaps just taking quiet comfort in him. He held her.
He thought about The Party. He thought about The Dress.
She looked so fucking beautiful in it. It caught every bit of the obscured lights in the room and sparkled almost too brightly. He'd wanted to say something…
When he'd teased her, through Jaron, she'd made such a face he wanted to laugh. It made him realize how much he enjoyed teasing her, how much he liked to laugh, just lately.
But he hadn't felt like laughing when she danced with Jaron. Jaron had kissed her on the forehead and she'd tipped her face into his chest. It was fatherly, certainly. She emoted such trust in Jaron, and when she turned those trusting eyes towards him on the throne, towards those stupid fucking gifts…
He'd had to walk away, without a backward glance. He didn't try to examine his feelings.
When he'd spotted her later, hiding behind the statuary and looking down the long hall to the Lord Marshal's door where the first of the painted ladies stood begging to be admitted… he'd turned away, without a backward glance.
He tried not to have any feelings to examine. But the Lady was not enough distraction.
When he'd come to Jaron's door that night he felt foolish and a little drunk. Jaron had smiled when he admitted Riddick into the apartment, turned without speaking and headed for an inner door. He'd stopped, waved Riddick to another door, and disappeared into his own room.
Riddick hadn't realized the suite had two rooms.
He'd gone to her door, looked at her sleeping and debated with himself.
'Everyone close to me dies.'
The dress was pooled on the floor near the closet. The wrapping of the box at the foot of her bed, beside her bed was her cloak. In her sleep, her slack hand still held the little cat he'd had made to replace the one she'd 'lost.'
'…My friend, my only friend, I am sorry I abandon you when you needed me most. I put you in this danger and let my fascination for one who does not need me hurt you. Please forgive me. Please don't die…'
When she'd nearly lost Nor she'd cried out those regrets for getting involved with him.
'…My friend, my only friend…'
'Everyone close to me dies.'
'…My fascination for one who does not need me…'
No, he didn't need anyone.
But he wanted her.
He still wanted her. And she still accepted him, as she did that night, without comment, without guilt or anger, without reservation. Even with a little humor.
When he had returned to her another night, determined to end it…
'Everyone close to me dies.'
He'd been determined to show her he really was just an animal, not something to be in love with, but she hadn't reacted as he expected. There was no fear, no anger; she urged him on and matched attitude, responded to his force with passion.
When she caught him with the Lady and punched him in the nose he thought it was at last over, she wouldn't want to see him again. He didn't need anyone. He could stop wanting her… acceptance. But an hour later she was back, and begging him to stay, to give her more time.
Then she made him laugh.
And damn it, he was getting to like that. He didn't need it, but he wanted it.
He still wanted it.
Zemma was snoring lightly against his chest, now. It had been a very long day, with so many hours playing tag with Don through the system. She's never pestered him about the things he promised to tell her; she just watched him pilot and waited.
'I waited over a decade for you.'
There was a little more she'd have to wait for.
But not his promise, she wouldn't have to wait for that. He pulled her up and kissed her awake.
"Mmm?" She questioned him sleepily, her hands come up behind his head, stroking lightly.
"I need you," he whispered.