13. Pride and Panic
Jack opened her eyes to a well-rested looking Riddick, who smelled like sex.
Zemma was not in the room puking her greenhorn guts up from cryo-sickness.
"Oh my god! You pig!" Jack tried to shout as she pushed Riddick away with two slightly unsteady hands, but managed only a loud croak. "How long did you leave me in here so you two could…"
"Jack…" Riddick's voice sounded tired; tired of her. A sharp pain, that had nothing to do with cryo-sickness, lanced through her chest. Jealousy gagged her when sense could not.
Jack had always prided herself on living smart and mean. Well, always since meeting Riddick. She'd mapped out all the rules she imagined he lived by, survived by, and made them her own. Only he seemed to be such a rule breaker that even his own weren't immune.
A fucking girlfriend? Most wanted man in the universe, and he cant keep his pants on for two straight hours around her.
"I ran a 36 hour viral scan on you." He tipped his head a little in that way that always seemed to say, 'You and I both know; why do we have to say it out loud?'
Jack looked into the farthest corner of the room. "Well?" She finally asked, irritably.
"You're clean, or I wouldn't have let you out." Riddick's voice had zero inflection to Jack's ear. But she took the unspoken meaning just the same: 'If you'd gotten infected; if you were The Mary, the Typhoid-Mary... Kid, you'd never have gotten out of there.'
Jack knew Riddick knew -something- about her past.
Five years ago, on a ship stolen from some psycho clay-face mercenaries, after what had seemed like weeks of exhaustion and hunger (but had really only been days), Riddick turned to her in the dark and said, 'Tell me a story.'
It had been a way to shut her up from her childish angst about what the future might hold for them, together. She'd so desperately needed reassurances that Riddick wouldn't leave her; he'd rescued her, but her track record wasn't good with would-be/could-be heroes.
Hypatia had rescued Jack after the murder of her mother -back before she was Jack, back when she was still Audrey.
'I'll take care of you,' had been words irresistible to an orphaned nine-year-old girl.
Months later, Jack would escape her so-called savior, so called benefactress, and fall right into the hands of another, much worse, rescuer. For the next three years Jack, who still wasn't Jack yet, would bounce from one self-proclaimed champion to another, getting more street wise, and unconsciously bitter.
Shazza, then Fry, had seemed so close to fulfilling her need…
Then Riddick…
Running through the rain and alien blood, one glance at Carolyn's small hand clasped in Riddick's huge one had sent family fantasies spiraling out of control in Jack's head...
Mother. Father. Safe. Finally.
Jack didn't thinkabout how she felt when Riddick returned without Carolyn Fry. Shock upon shock had finally, simply, blanked her mind for a few sanity saving minutes. Riddick's control and no-nonsense attitude (Zemma could have told her it was the balm of the Now) cemented Jack's fixation on him. When he held her hand in the tiny cockpit, and told her the old Riddick was dead 'back on that planet somewhere', she knew she would love him forever, do anything for him, sacrifice all… for him.
She was old enough to recognize the change from criminal to man. She was old enough to fall in love with it, with him.
She was not old enough to hold him, keep him, make him love her back. And like all the rest, he was gone, and she was alone.
Imam was never enough to hold her, not enough protection, not enough peace. He'd talked and talked to her, of love and sacrifice, but he still only talked to her as a child. The way Riddick wanted to talk to her. The way his so-called woman tried to talk to her. Jack the child had died somewhere on that planet.
'Tell me a story,' he'd said.
She understood and forgave Riddick for seeing her as a child, back then. Looking like a young boy had been only slightly safer than looking like a young girl.
She told him the only story she knew by heart, from a childhood that lacked faerie godmothers but not the monsters.
"You are about to hear, said Aramis, an account which few could now give; for it refers to a secret which they buried with their dead...." She recited the beginning of 'The Man in the Iron Mask', an old Earth classic, and watched his face change slowly, and subtly. She'd thought, at the time, in the last remnants of her child's heart, that he was truly seeing her for the first time; that her eloquence was speaking to his heart and that he could see the woman she would be if he would just wait a little while… for her.
It was the last of her childish fantasies -and he broke the last piece of her childhood heart when he left her.
But for a little while, she imagined he saw her soul, who she really was, hiding inside the body of a child; saw the passion of the adult that was to come. She thought her love of him must blaze so strongly that it was illuminating the dark places in his heart.
Stupid. Fucking stupid.
When she was done, and her throat was sore from talking, and she couldn't stop hoping that he would take her in his arms and say, 'I didn't know that soul existed in you. I love you.' He'd only asked, "Your mother was murdered, right? And she owned that book?"
Jack had nodded numbly. How could he have known that, unless he had really seen into her heart of hearts? And if so, how could he sit there so unmoved? Couldn't he see that she…?
"Go to sleep, kid." He walked away.
"Riddick!" She called out, as desperately as she had on the planet, if quieter.
He'd turned, a strange look on his face. "You tell a good story, kid. But you should maybe keep that one to yourself." He turned and headed back to the small bridge, leaving her in the dark, alone.
An inkling of understanding began to bloom in the back of her mind.
Riddick KNEW.
He KNEW.
How could it be?
He KNEW!
She'd been sure of it then. His words to her now only confirmed it. He knew. She was the biggest payday in the universe, to the right people, to the right governments. She was either the most powerful weapon in any galaxy, or it's only antidote.
She didn't know which. She stared at Riddick and wondered if he did. And what he'd do about it. Once upon a time, she'd trusted him completely, loved him completely. But as they stood in the med-lab of the 'Monger frigate, understanding unspoken between them, Jack felt afraid.
Unresolved, childish anger and jealousy had driven her to seek out, and push, any button of his she could. He'd betrayed her by leaving her. She'd wanted to punish him. He'd betrayed the memory of Carolyn Fry with that waspy woman who could never hold a candle to the strong, brave woman, who had replaced the image of Jack's mother for a few desperate minutes in Jack's mind. She'd wanted to punish Zemma.
Now she was afraid she'd miscalculated horribly. Riddick only looked at her, completely unreadable. He knew her secret, and he was a heartless criminal who never loved her. And she couldn't stop pissing him off. She had to get the hell off this boat and get on with her life, first chance. She never should have trusted him.
"Is it breakfast, lunch or dinner time?" She quipped easily, a big fake smile on her face. "I'm starved and the least you can do is buy me dinner."
A slow, hesitant half smile engaged Riddick's wary face. "You're the only person I know who can come out of cryo hungry." He shook his head in mock disbelief.
Jack kept her fear in better check than her anger. Though like all her emotions, it consumed her completely. She was simply better at hiding this one.
Of course, none of the other three people on board would have agreed with her personal assessment of that.
Riddick, seeing Jack's sudden and unprovoked fear of him, was finally curious about what was driving the girl (he thought) he once refused to kill, and once refused to let die.