15.
Jack: Fear And Shelter
Soon after Riddick showed up for breakfast, Jack decided she'd been imagining his tension from the night before. His legendary composure was back in place (if it had been out of place at all) and he was completely relaxed.
The clinic, it turned out, provided a fairly excellent menu. They'd even been able to arrange for a bowl of pineapple chunks, her not-so-secret vice. Riddick jokingly commented that now he knew where the bulk of her treatment fee was going.
The pain wasn't as bad today... yet. Her physician had stopped by briefly after Riddick had left the night before, to go over the course of the treatment, and had told her that the next session would begin at noon. After what she had been told, she was desperately scared. She hoped Riddick would stay with her through it. She needed him to be there.
Jack waited until the breakfast was almost over before she got up the nerve to ask. Riddick beat her to it.
"Something's wrong, Jack. What is it?"
She took a deep breath. Why was it so hard, suddenly, to ask him to do this?
He reached across the small, portable breakfast table they'd been using and put his hand on her arm. "C'mon, kid, what is it?"
"Today's... treatment... is gonna be bad." She felt like an idiot, saying it.
"Bad?" His voice was gentle.
"Very painful," she whispered, letting her fear show. She was surprised to see Riddick's expression soften.
"You want me to stay with you again."
She nodded, embarrassed. How come she'd suddenly turned into a total chicken about pain? "Please."
He lifted the tray off of the bed and climbed on, sitting beside her. "What did they tell you they were going to do?"
She twisted her hands together. "Dr. Cartwright says this is the main session. They have to inject the tissue into me in several key spots and then activate it. They can't use any painkillers or anesthesia while they do it. Somehow they'd interfere with the regeneration process."
"How long did she say it would take?" His arm came around her shoulder. She leaned against him gratefully.
"Three horrible hours. And she said I'd probably be in a lot of pain for the next six to eight hours after that. They're going to start at noon." She looked up at him, still ashamed. "I don't know why I'm so scared..."
"You'd have to be an idiot not to be, Jack. Sounds worse than what I went through to get my eyes shined." He patted her gently on the back. "I'll stay with you through the whole thing. Promise."
She closed her eyes and rested her head against his chest. She'd never had a friend like this before, she realized. She'd never known friends like this could exist. He was an uncanny find, the dangerous killer that she'd once idolized for his take-no-shit attitude and his spectacular clashes with the law. She'd tried so hard to impress him in turn, at first, only to discover that he was the most impressed when she was the most herself.
Back when she'd been passing herself off as a boy, she'd chosen the name "Jack" because it was easy for her to remember. Her mother had always called her "Jacqui," after all, preferring her middle name to the name she'd been given in honor of her intolerant, disapproving paternal grandmother. So when people said "Jack," she never forgot that they were talking to her. And they never considered that they weren't talking to a boy.
After Riddick had "outed" her, she'd considered her options again, wondering if she should go back to being "Jacqui." She'd decided not to, at least for then, since she had no idea what was going to happen once the three of them got picked up. When she'd realized that Riddick would let her come with him, she'd been beside herself with joy. And he called her "Jack," so that's who she was more than happy to be.
He never questioned her choice of "Jack" until two months into their sojourn. By then they'd come to know each other very well, sharing stories of their pasts and speculating on what their futures might be like in an ideal universe.
"So why did you keep 'Jack,' anyway?" he'd finally asked.
"Because," she'd said after a long moment, as truth and wit collided in her head, "nobody in the galaxy knows 'Jack' but you."
He'd laughed and pulled her into his lap, the big brother she'd never had before. There were many moments in those days when she'd hoped he would take a very different role than that one. She'd had a huge crush on him and her nights had been full of breathtaking fantasies about him joining her in her bed, kissing her, touching her...
Funny, those fantasies had disappeared not long after the shooting. Not only the fantasies about him, but about any man. Like some switch had been turned off. She'd hardly ever thought about it, and when she had, she'd decided that it was because she was surrounded by girls most of the time and the only men she ever got to see were complete dicks like Parker and Jarvis.
The first year in the shelter, she'd decorated her room with every picture of him she could find. It had been a gesture of defiance as well as a mark of her continued love. The other girls had admired the pictures at first, commenting on how hot he was, until they learned exactly who he was. Then they'd thought she was sick. None of them had believed her when she said he was her friend, until Pamela Markham broke into the shelter's file room and read her record.
Next thing she'd known, the whispers had started, the phrase "Riddick's Bitch" peppering them. The girls, all of them, including the two or three she'd genuinely started to grow close to, kept their distance. By the time they got over it, she was fed up and wanted nothing to do with any of them. All she wanted was Riddick. Eventually, however, the pictures had come down off of her walls. They were too painful to look at.
Her dreams of him, when she let them come to her, had been like this moment, dreams of his arms around her, solidly supporting her through any ordeal. There had been little or nothing sexual about the dreams, any longer. She knew that a lot of the girls whispered that she'd been his personal sex toy, especially after Pamela claimed that her medical records said she was no virgin. Wrong, but only on one of the two counts. She didn't bother to correct them. Better if they thought she'd fucked a serial killer and gotten off on it than if they knew the truth and pitied her for it. The concept of them feeling sorry for her was something that filled her with loathing.
That, she realized, was the reason their remarks in the article had upset her so much. She'd hated the notion of any of them thinking of her as "poor little Jack." Not in life and certainly not in "death."
Shit, that was why it had been so hard to ask Riddick to stay with her. She hated being pitied, and desperately hoped that she would never feel him pitying her.
"We have five hours until your treatment starts," Riddick finally told her. "You wanna see if this place has a chess set?"
She was jerked back to reality and burst out laughing. "Jeez, I suck at chess, Riddick! You know that!"
His answering laugh was a deep rumble in his chest. "Which is why you need to keep playing. It's a very good game, you know. Teaches a lot about strategy. And now that we're back together, you're gonna play a lot of it again."
"Now I know the real reason you brought me back into your life," she mock-grumbled. "You just want someone whose ass you can kick at chess."
"That would be practically anybody, kid," he boasted.
The clinic had a decent set. They played four games before noon. Riddick roundly trounced her every time. Big surprise.
"Your problem is that you only think in tactical terms, Jack," he told her after she started coming dangerously close to whining. "You need to concentrate on strategy. See the whole board. Look several moves ahead." He followed it up by "killing" her Queen.
"Jerk," she muttered. He check-mated her two moves later.
They were resetting the board when the knock on the door sounded and Jack knew her time was up. Her hands abruptly began to shake, spilling several pawns to the floor. Riddick calmly moved the board and pieces out of the way and opened up to admit the doctor and her assistants. He frowned when he saw the restraints they'd brought.
"What the hell are those for?"
Dr. Cartwright looked a bit taken aback by his frown. He could throw a lot of menace into it when he wanted to. Jack had forgotten how much he hated restraints.
"It's okay Ri-- Colin," she said in a hurry. "They told me about this. I'm going to need them."
After a moment Riddick stepped back and let the medical team wheel the cart of equipment in. He still looked angry. Suddenly he reached out, snagging the mouth bit on top of the cart. "You are not putting this fucking thing in her mouth."
"She's going to need it, Mr. Tarsin," the doctor said softly. "The pain is very intense. Please, give it to--"
Riddick threw it across the room. "No fucking way."
Jack had forgotten that, too. He'd spent twenty-two weeks fully conscious in a cryo-tube with a horse bit in his mouth; naturally he'd respond intensely. Dumb. She should have warned him. Not that she wanted the thing in her mouth...
The technicians were busy securing the restraints to the head and the foot of the bed. Jack was suddenly aware of how badly she was shaking. She hoped they'd let Riddick sit with her, or hold her hand, or something. She was going to need some anchor against the pain to come.
Dr. Cartwright sighed, closing her eyes for a moment. "Fine. No bit. But I warn you she'll probably scream... a lot. That's what it's for, to give her something to bite down on."
Riddick turned to look at Jack. "You really want that thing?"
Jack felt like a frozen rabbit. What she wanted to do was run away and hide. She gave a small shake of her head.
"No bit," Riddick growled.
Dr. Cartwright sighed again and shook her head in exasperation. "We need to get started. If you would lie down please, Mrs. Tarsin?"
"Wait." Riddick turned and stalked over to the bed. "Slight change of plans there, too."
Jack stared in wonder as he climbed onto the bed and lay down on his back. He drew her to him and made her lie down on top of him, so that the back of her head rested on his shoulder. "Now I'll be with you the whole time, kid," he whispered into her ear.
And she'd been hoping he'd do as much as sit next to her and hold her hand. This was the man everyone claimed had no connection to humanity? If he was the only one who truly knew Jack, she was the only one who truly knew Riddick. And even she was constantly amazed by him.
A deeply moved expression had appeared once more on Dr. Cartwright's face. She almost looked like she wanted to cry. Was compassion such a stranger to this place? She nodded to her assistants and they began securing Jack's arms and legs.
A glance at the equipment on the cart made Jack's blood turn to icewater. There were more than a dozen syringes, each one with a traumatically long needle attached. She shuddered, almost seeming to feel them invade her body already.
"Don't look at them, Jack," Riddick whispered, his voice pitched so that the doctor and her orderlies wouldn't hear him. Thank God he could call her by her real name instead of having to say "Rebecca."
She nodded and closed her eyes. She was securely fastened to the bed now, and more frightened than she'd ever been in her life, even when she'd been pinned under a huge bone with a monster from the realm of nightmares trying to smash through it and eat her.
Riddick had been her rescuer that time, too.
She felt Dr. Cartwright lift up her gown, pushing it upward until it only just covered her breasts, baring her whole abdomen.
As something heavy pressed against her belly and began moving across it, Riddick began to speak.
"It's okay. She's running a scanner over you to determine where the injections have to go." His voice was low and soothing, almost hypnotic. She swallowed.
"Alright," Dr. Cartwright said after a moment. "The preparation treatments have achieved the needed results. We're ready to begin. I'm going to mark the injection sites, Rebecca. It'll take a moment."
She felt the light pressure as a marker pressed against various spots on her tummy, leaving dots where injections were to go.
"Now I need you to try to relax, Rebecca. This is going to sting." She heard the doctor lift one of the syringes off of the cart.
"Here we go," Riddick murmured. A moment later she felt the needle break through her skin.
She winced and let out a hiss of pain, hoping the worst was past. But the needle kept pushing inward, deeper and deeper. How fucking long was it? Oh god... A small whimper escaped her lips. One of Riddick's hands came to rest against her cheek and she pressed her face hard against it.
"This is the part that's going to hurt, Rebecca. I have to inject the regen material into you now. It's going to take a few minutes and it will be very painful. You can still have the bit if you want." The doctor paused to give her a chance to respond.
"No bit," Jack whispered. She steeled herself for the pain to come.
Searing, molten fire spread into her belly as the injection was administered. Jack clenched her fists, feeling every muscle in her body tense. She whimpered again, louder. Riddick wrapped his arms around her chest and shoulders and held her tightly. The pain began to build.
"Oh... god..." she gasped.
"Try to stay relaxed, Rebecca," the doctor said in what was intended to be a soothing voice.
The agony was spreading, creeping through her whole nervous system. Her hands were spasming and the only things that kept her body from thrashing were the tight restraints and Riddick's presence.
"Oh shit, oh shit!" Her voice broke as she gasped in pain once more.
Suddenly the dam burst and the full, obliterating torment rolled through her body. Jack threw back her head and screamed.
16.
Riddick: New Forms of Intimacy
The moment the orderlies undid the restraints prisoning Jack's limbs, she curled into a tiny, fetal ball and pressed herself tightly against him. Riddick wrapped his arms around her equally tightly and held her close. If he'd had any idea that she would have to endure this much pain, he'd never have started this whole mess in the first place.
He could feel Dr. Cartwright's eyes on him but he didn't bother to look up. He already knew everything there was to know about her and she was a very good doctor, but she held no interest for him in any capacity right now. His only concern was the shaking, tormented girl in his arms.
For three hours she'd writhed in agony against the restraints, trying to hold back her screams. One of his ears was ringing a little from them, but he figured it was no less than he deserved. He'd held her and talked to her the entire time, trying to give her as strong an anchor against the pain as he could. They were both soaked with her tears and sweat now.
Finally the doctor and her assistants finished packing up and left the room. He was damned glad to have them gone, especially the younger of the two orderlies. The fucker had been getting off on Jack's pain and had set a murderous rage slowly boiling within Riddick. He'd found himself wanting to gut the man slowly, wanting to force him to experience an approximation of the agony he knew Jack was enduring.
Once upon a time the fact that he'd undergone his shine job with no anesthesia had seemed like a proud act of stoicism to him. No more. It didn't compare to what Jack had been through, and was still going through. She had another six to eight hours of residual pain as the regen process continued in high gear.
Once the door closed, Riddick put his hand gently under Jack's chin and brought her face up to meet his gaze. "Jack? You in there, kid?"
After a moment she seemed to become aware of him. She nodded, swallowing hard. The look on her tear-streaked face was heartbreaking.
"I'm so sorry, Jack. I had no idea it would be this bad." He stroked her sweat-soaked hair back from her face. Worst fucking present he'd ever conceived of. He'd wanted to do something nice for her, and instead he'd let her in for sheer hellish misery.
"It's okay," she whispered weakly. Her voice was hoarse from three hours of anguished screams.
"The fuck it is. This was a stupid idea."
"No," she answered, burrowing closer to him. "You couldn't have known. You were trying to give me my life back..." Her face twisted and a small whimper escaped her. Against him, he could feel the muscles of her belly spasming.
"Yeah," he answered, still furious with himself. "Give your life back. A nice return to the old hellified life, huh? For your nineteenth birthday I should go back to that fucking planet and get you one of those creatures for a pet."
She laughed for a second before the pain made her stop. "Thank you, Riddick."
"What the fuck for?"
She didn't answer for a moment as her body shuddered under the onslaught of yet more pain. Finally, her voice came to him, small and thready. "For loving me this much."
He wondered if the ache suddenly lancing through him even vaguely approximated what she was feeling. The two of them lapsed into silence, broken only when another wave of pain passed through his girl and she was unable to stop from crying out. He held her tightly, lost in thought.
"Love" was a word that he'd completely absented from his vocabulary, but by god she was right. He loved her. He'd loved her for years, he realized, since the days in the skiff when he'd opened himself up to another human being for the first time in his life and she'd accepted him exactly as he was. It was why he feared the animal within him now, the part that knew nothing of love, only possession, and seemed determined to own her at any price. A price that Jack would have to pay, not the beast.
He already belonged to her, he realized, utterly and completely. If he could have found a way to assume her pain on her behalf, he'd have done it in an instant without any hesitation or doubt. That kind of selflessness was new and strange to him, and painful in its own way. The thought that he might one day lose her again, to anything or anyone, was agonizing.
A line from a centuries-old movie, a macabre comedy that he'd enjoyed as a child, floated through his mind. "I would die for her... I would kill for her... either way, what bliss..."
He knew it was true, completely true. If he could have rolled back time, knowing this, he would have taken Jarvis's bullet for her. He'd killed a dozen of Jarvis' best students in their sleep as retaliation when he'd believed she was dead.
He'd thought, for a while, that his feelings for Carolyn had been love, and maybe they were, but they paled in comparison to this. Jack was far more central to his existence, a much more fundamental part of who he was. Carolyn had given him back his soul and his humanity, but Jack was the one who had nurtured them ever since, even when they had been kept apart.
He held her for the next several hours as she suffered the aftereffects of her treatment. Finally, long after sunset, she fell into an uneasy slumber. Exhausted, he joined her in it soon after.
He woke when an orderly knocked on the door the next morning.
Jack squirmed uncomfortably as he got out of the bed, but she didn't wake up. A glance out of the window told him that they had slept longer than he'd planned. He opened the door.
The young woman outside must be new; she wrinkled her nose in disgust for a second before she caught herself and schooled her expression into professional blandness. He couldn't really blame her. The room reeked of Jack's sweat and pain and fear, as did he.
"They told me to see what you wanted for breakfast," she finally said, watching him nervously. He imagined that, under the circumstances, he looked more dangerous and frightening than usual.
He shrugged. "Don't know yet," he answered in his Zeke impression. "Rebecca hasn't come to yet. Wanna give us an hour and check again?"
The woman nodded. She began to turn away when he had a thought.
"Say... in half an hour could you have somebody come by and change our sheets? Bring a new gown for Rebecca, and maybe some scrubs I can wear while these are being washed." He gestured at his sweat-stained clothes.
She nodded again. "Half an hour. Got it."
"Door'll be unlocked."
This time he closed the door as she turned away. Jack was awake, watching him as he turned around. She looked much more lucid than she had the night before. He returned to the bed and sat next to her.
"How you feeling, kid?"
Her wry smile surprised him. "Not too hot... but better, I guess. How come you told her the door would be unlocked?"
"Because we need to get cleaned up." He leaned closer to her. "I'm not sure which one of us smells worse, you see."
She laughed for a few seconds. "Damn, that still hurts..."
"Sorry." He put his arm around her, watching her with concern. Next thing he knew, her head was on his shoulder.
"Don't be sorry, Riddick. I like it when you make me laugh. Nobody else makes me laugh the way you do. I've missed it."
"I've missed having someone around that could get my jokes," he answered. It was true, too. "You given any thought to what you want for breakfast?"
"Morphine."
Now it was his turn to laugh. "I don't think they have that on their menu, but I'll be sure to ask. Seriously, are you hungry?"
"Famished. I haven't eaten anything since last breakfast."
"Come to think of it, I haven't either. How about I leave them a note telling them to bring us everything?"
"Pineapple. They have to bring pineapple."
"Damned right, kid, you've earned it. Toast?"
"Pancakes. And waffles. Lots of syrup and butter. Scrambled eggs and sausage. I want it all."
"You'll have it," he whispered. Anything you want, ever, he added silently.
He leaned over and snagged the writing pad and pen from her bedside table and scribbled their requests on it. She watched, chuckling over the items he added for himself. "Most people don't have a steak for breakfast, Riddick."
"Some do. Anyway, that's my dinner. Never got one, you know."
"So what are you ordering for the lunch you missed?"
"I'll save that for today's lunch, I guess." He grinned at her.
"You know, at this rate, I'm going to get so fat I'll look pregnant by the time we get out of here."
The thought caught him by surprise and he found himself studying her, imagining how she would look in pregnancy. She wouldn't be quite as thin, he imagined. He bet she'd be one of those women that everyone claimed "glowed." Funny what an attractive image his mind conjured.
"What?" she asked after a moment, and he realized he was staring.
"Nothing, just trying to picture what you'd look like pregnant, that's all."
"Eeyuch! I'd be a freakin' whale."
"Damn right, but a cute whale. One of those belugas, you know, with the natural grins?"
"Those are dolphins, moron. Dolphins are the ones with the natural grins."
"Hey, who's making this up, you or me?"
"Fine, fine, I'll be a beluga whale." She wrinkled her nose at him and he reached over and tweaked it.
"So, you wanna shower first or after?"
"Shit, Riddick," she answered, suddenly distressed. "I don't think I can manage that without help. I had to have the nurse help me into the bathroom just to pee the other night, and I felt loads better then."
He felt his heart plunge abruptly.
Oh fuck, he thought. He should have realized this was going to happen, and he'd just walked into a trap of his own devising. The animal deep within him had to be laughing at him now.
He swallowed. There was no way he could ask one of the nurses to assist her. They were here incognito and he'd checked her in as his wife. The last thing he could do was draw undue attention to them by asking someone else to help her shower when he was right here, supposedly her husband.
Shit. Shit. SHIT!
He took a deep breath. He'd just have to keep himself under control... somehow.
"You gonna be okay with me helping you?" He didn't care whether or not she could see his unease.
She nodded, her trust in him absolute.
Remember this, he told himself. She trusts you. Don't you fucking dare betray that.
Deep within him he heard the animal snarl in response.
You'd only get to once if you did, you dumb shit, he informed it.
He helped her to her feet and drew the gown over her head. He tried not to look at her body as he stripped off her underwear and piled the works on the bed. He shucked down out of his own clothes as well, grinding his teeth. He had to support her with his arm around her waist as he walked her to the bathroom, and it felt like her skin was burning his wherever it touched.
This was going to be pure hell.
Remember how much pain she's in, he admonished himself. This isn't about you, it's about your kid sister and she's sick right now. This is your kid sister!
He had her adjust the water to a temperature she was comfortable with before they stepped in. He was surprised to discover that she liked her water almost-scalding.
For the most part she was able to wash herself, but he did her back for her and steadied her at odd moments when the pain rolled through her body once more. He was getting good at spotting the signs, catching her before she started to get weak. It was a huge relief to him that she could do most of it, because he wasn't at all sure he'd have been able to not touch her sexually if he'd had to take over. He washed himself as quickly as he could. His control was still in place, but he could feel it starting to want to slip.
Dammit, he told himself, this is not about you, you stupid fuck! This is about her and she needs you to be the man she trusts. Stay in the human race, for her sake!
He could almost hear the beast within him growling in denial.
The exertion was starting to get to her. Her hands shook as she lifted the bottle of shampoo she'd brought from their ship. He took it out of her hand.
"Close your eyes, Jack. I'll do it."
He poured a small amount of her shampoo into the palm of his hand and applied it to her wet hair. She'd taken hold of one of the support handles on the shower walls and was concentrating simply on remaining standing while he washed her hair and massaged her scalp. Finally he bent her head forward under the spray and rinsed the shampoo out, careful to get it all.
Finally, he thought to himself with relief, this is over... what the--?
Jack had suddenly turned around and wrapped her arms around him, resting her head against his chest. He could feel how exhausted she was, the slight tremor in her body that signaled how close she was to running out of energy. Her cheek was pressed against his chest, her breasts against his stomach.
Oh god, Jack, no, don't do this...
He could feel the first stirrings in his groin.
No! NO!
Gritting his teeth, he concentrated his whole will on his body, forcing it to bend to his wishes. He was not going to hurt her. She would not know -- ever -- how close this had brought him. It was agony for him but he regained the upper hand over his treacherous body. After a moment he was even able to return Jack's embrace in the manner it was intended.
Finally he managed to switch off the water and steer her out of the shower stall. He grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his waist in a hurry before he helped her dry off.
Glancing out into the room, he was relieved to see that the bed had been changed. A new hospital gown was set out for Jack, and an extra-large set of scrubs had been left for him. He steered Jack back out into the bedroom and got her dressed as fast as he could.
As he pulled the scrubs on, profound relief washed over him. They'd survived. Somehow they'd survived.
Deep within him, the animal roared its thwarted rage.