38. Didn't Know Any Better

She really didn't know any better. She didn't understand love like she should. It was at once mystifying and terrifying. It usually made her run like hell. She ran from Kyra, right back to Hypatia; and not just because she wanted out of prison. She hated herself for that.

She ran from Imam, his suffocating love, and even more stifling faith. She didn't trust any of it. It never felt real. It never felt like…this.

Riddick… it felt right with him, when she was too young to know she was too young. Except, he ran first. When he found her again, when he had already found someone else, it hurt so bad that all she wanted was to share the misery.

Damn Zemma. Jack had tried to hate her. Nosy, funny, ignorant of everything that wasn't delivered by room service; Zemma should have hated Jack right back. She wasn't anything like the mother figures Jack had sought out before: Carolyn and Shazza had both wanted to protect Jack; something she both craved and feared.

But Zemma forgave her…Zemma kicked her in the head… Zemma just wanted her around. Could you love a friend? Jack didn't know. She didn't know how to love Zemma, she just did. It was all too confusing.

And now… Don. Not acting like Satan at all, at least, when no one was looking. Jack was grateful for that. She wouldn't have known how to deal with Don's open kindness. She liked to fight with him; she liked being held by him. She loved him and it hurt so wonderfully, so differently. It made her love Riddick and Zemma all the more. It made her want to love Don even more, to show him how much she felt.

She didn't know any better.

She couldn't sleep, thinking about it all. Don was snoring ever so lightly. She loved the sound of it. The sound felt safe. His arms felt safe. She'd never felt like this; at least, not since Riddick had held her hand in the little escape craft, when she asked what would happen if mercs found them in the shipping lane. He had held her hand and told her that other Riddick had died on the planet, and she thought he would be hers forever.

But, she'd been too young then. She couldn't sleep for that one thought…

'I'm old enough; I'm old enough now. I'm eighteen, two years past legal age on most planets…'

It was true enough. She didn't know Don's exact age, but he had to have been exaggerating that she could be his granddaughter. He only looked… forty…ish…

She didn't know any better. She didn't know how to love any better.

So when Don's dreams turned to whispers in a language she didn't know, when he seemed to be calling a woman's name, Jack only wanted to be that woman for him.

She moved very slowly, sliding her arms into and under her tee shirt, carefully pulling it over her head. Bare-chested, she snuggled in closer to him, letting her fingers stroke his arm lightly… searching for where she could reach his bare chest above his tee. She loved him so much; it confused her, made her head swell and her chest feel like it would burst.

In his sleep, still dream-speaking words she didn't know, he pulled her closer. Jack's heart thumped so hard, she didn't think she could breathe.

"I love you," she whispered, causing gooseflesh to break out all over. Forbidden words.

Her fingers sought the bottom hem of his shirt, hunting for bare skin. She tipped her hips into his, pressing her body closer. She didn't hear the tiny mewing sound that escaped her; the pounding of blood pressure in her ears drowned everything else out. His body responded to the pressure of hers, in sync with the impulses of the erotic dream.

Jack kissed Don's chin, liking the scruffy feeling of the day's beard grown in since he shaved that morning. She thought maybe this morning she would stay and watch him shave. If he would let her, she wouldn't leave his cabin in the morning, but use his sonic shower while he shaved.

It was a silly, little-girl fantasy, of course, and she couldn't recognize that. Don had already set the limits of their relationship. She didn't realize how serious he was about that line. She didn't understand daughterly love.

She loved the feel of his warm skin, the silkiness of the thin layer of hair on his muscled chest. She pressed her hips against his again, and groaned with urgency. She wanted to feel his hands on her, his lips on her face, she wanted to feel him inside of her and she wanted to make him happy. She only wanted to make him feel as good as she did in his arms.

Her hands roved down from his chest towards his pants. She could feel his body's reaction to her. She thought it meant something; she thought it meant everything would be all right.

She was so painfully wrong.

He startled awake, not easily, but hard and fast. His body jolted from the dream at the invasive touch of her hands. Shock caused him to push her away, his hands landing on hot, naked flesh of her chest. There was no sweet understanding. There was no reciprocal tenderness that she expected.

"Jack! What the hell!"

He couldn't get away from her fast enough. Jack's mind registered the movements, the words, too slowly, caught as she was in her little girl fantasy.

"Don… I love you…" Her voice squeaked out as she landed on the floor from his shove. She couldn't see, but heard him scrambling away from her, cussing in a language she didn't know.

"Don…" She choked on whatever words she intended to say as she burst into unnatural tears: Tears of a child, not a grown woman.

"Damn you! Damn you to hell! What do you think you're doing?" He raged. She heard him hit a wall with a fist, punctuating his words. "What do you think I am?"

Jack was crying so hard now, the words were barely coherent, "I…love…you, Deinen."

"Stop that! Stop it! Don't you say that after what you were doing! You don't understand what that means."

"Please…" she started, but the sobs cut her off again.

"Get your damn clothes on, girl! And get out of this room!" Somehow, his voice seemed to get even louder, his shouts echoing painfully in the small, undecorated space.

"No, please!"

"You had no right!"

"I only wanted to…" she tried again to talk, but couldn't catch her breath.

"To what?" Finally, his voice dropped a little, but the scorn in it now was unbearable to Jack's ear. "To put me in the category of all the men in the world who aren't Riddick?"

"No…" She wailed, confused.

"Or is this what you would do to him if you had the chance? Turn your hero into just another one the monsters who used you?"

"Stop it!" She found enough breath to scream back at him. "Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!" But she dissolved back to hysterical sobbing.

"Get out." His voice dropped again so that he was no longer shouting over her. His voice was cold and low and final. Get out. The words rang through her head like a fire; pierced her like a sword. He didn't understand, he wouldn't listen, all she wanted was…

She felt broken into a thousand pieces, but her body remembered what to do even as her mind locked up on the words that still echoed in her head like shards of glass.

Get out.

She flung herself up and towards the door, slamming into the wall first, sobbing hysterically, and deafly, unable to hear anything but those two final words. Somehow she found the door panel; somehow she slapped it open and stumbled from the black of the room into the over-bright hall. Somehow, her feet found the means to do what she had always done: she ran.

She didn't see Zemma and Riddick as they passed by Don's cabin, looks of shock and confusion on their faces to see the half naked and hysterical Jack run from the room. Jack didn't see the look of cold anger on one, turn to murder, as she didn't see Don step to the doorway at that moment.

Riddick didn't register the look on Don's face, all he saw was the man responsible for Jack's panic-stricken flight.

Zemma did, and in that brief second before she took off at a dead run after Jack, she thought she knew what had transpired. If she had seen the look on Riddick's face, she might have stayed. It didn't occur to her that Riddick didn't see the situation as clearly as she did.

Riddick, usually so astute at taking in information and making reasonable deductions, was blind in just few areas: One was Zemma, the other was Jack. Don knew it; knew by the look on Riddick's face what was coming next. Don knew nothing he could say would stop the avalanche descending.

Riddick's whole body seemed to expand as he took the few short steps towards Don. His muscles bunched and his jaw tightened as one arm cocked back to deliver a sledgehammer of a punch to Don's face.

Don didn't try to avoid it. He wouldn't cower like a guilty man. His eyes grew cold as Riddick's, as he held his head high and accepted the inevitable. The blow knocked him back into the dark cabin and Don twitched up his lenses to follow Riddick's progress toward him.

"You get one for free," Don sneered. He leapt from the floor, tackling Riddick across the midsection, pushing them both back into the corridor and slamming them both painfully into the bulkhead with a thunderous crash.

The sound alerted Zemma before she reached Jack, who was much better adapted to running. Zemma slid to a stop before crossing the pressure door into the inner corridors of the ship. "Fuck!" She hissed, but didn't debate with herself. She turned back the way she'd come. Jack would be okay, but the two behind her might kill one another. She ran hard towards the sound of fighting.

Don was a few inches taller than Riddick, but while broad, didn't mass nearly as much. He wasn't faster than the younger man, and was still taking more blows than he threw. He was, however, as wily and surly a fighter. Zemma summed it up in the few seconds it took her to race back to them. Riddick was fighting to kill, and Don only to defend himself. Neither spoke.

Zemma could only see one option.

She shortened her stride just enough, and threw herself bodily at Riddick in much the same manner Don had, but aiming higher, hoping to topple him, hoping to distract him enough to stop the fight.

It was a good plan. It just didn't work.

Riddick caught her mid-air, with a sweep of his arms, and propelled her past him, and further down the hall to crash into the wall. The whole movement barely broke his stride, and he turned immediately back towards Don.

Don took the whole second that Zemma had afforded him to step back and drop his hands, he backed towards Zemma's prone figure on the floor behind him with just a quick glance her way.

"I know you didn't mean to do that," he said, huffing a bit, his age clearly showing.

Riddick's glance at Zemma's crumpled body behind Don at first seemed cold and uncaring, and Don worried for a moment that the self proclaimed murderer was too far gone in his rage to care. But the next moment, he blinked.

Inwardly, Don sighed in relief. It was a gutsy move, and Zemma might be hurt, but she'd gotten through Riddick's thick skull in a way words wouldn't have. Now if he could just keep from setting Riddick off again…

"It isn't what you think…" Don started, backing another step towards Zemma when she moaned. He glanced back again, hoping to see her hop up unhurt and spitting mad.

It was a mistake to think Riddick was ready to hear anything Don said. Don found himself choking as Riddick's hand tightening on his throat. Riddick's face was cold and angry still as he looked from Don to Zemma, a dozen feet further back and still not getting up.

"Bastard," Riddick hissed. "Taking advantage of a little girl? You gonna tell me it was all her idea?"

Don debated amping this fight up again. Riddick would take him, eventually. He was faster than any man Don had ever seen: an admirable fighter, if not much of a leader. He had no doubt Riddick could and would kill him if he got it in his head to do so. Don felt every one of his seventy years of hard living.

Zemma moaned again, and Don decided to let Riddick make up his own mind if Now was the time for Don to die. He wasn't afraid of death, even an ignoble one. He had sort of thought of Riddick as a friend. He had hoped Riddick would give up being a hero, and become a leader, but neither of those things drove Don to keep his mouth shut now. He was only worried about one thing…

Jack.

He'd been angry and hard on her; he didn't want that to be her last memory of him.

Riddick's hand didn't tighten, and Don made no move to remove it.

"Riddick, Zemma's hurt." Don spoke slowly, calmly, with what little breath he had.

Riddick's eyes darted to her again. "And what about Jack? What did you do to her?"

Don kept his face still. He could still hear murder in the man's voice. "I threw her out, Riddick. That's all. I didn't touch her."

Behind him, Don heard a palm slap the deck hard, and a string of Furyan swear words he would not have bet Zemma knew. He heard her groan as he guessed she heaved herself up, watching Riddick's eyes follow her movement.

"Son of a bitch," Zemma switched to the common speech. "Riddick, if you re-broke my arm…"

Don thought her voice was very carefully pitched, angry but low key. He watched Riddick's eyes as he heard Zemma step up close to Don's shoulder, felt her lay a hand there.

"Are you done, now?" She asked Riddick archly.

Riddick's jaw tightened as he stared hard at Don, avoiding Zemma's face. Zemma stepped into Don's view, her right arm pressed against her ribcage, but her left hand reaching for Riddick's face, drawing his look to hers. She didn't say anything, just held his gaze, searching.

After a moment she asked him, "Do you want me to go find Jack, or land this bitch?" She turned to Don and added, conversationally, "We were coming to tell you we're in orbit, with a landing sequence."

Riddick's arm dropped away as he turned Don loose. He turned one last cold look to Don as he said, "You're off this boat." Then to Zemma, "Go find Jack." He strode away without another word or glance at either of them.

"Zemma…" Don started.

Zemma turned away, perhaps still harboring some doubts about what she'd seen. Her words belied that, but perhaps they were just hopeful.

"I don't think she knows any better, Don," she said as she walked away from him.