Summery: Hidey-hole, and finding the light. Riddick's rescue and Fry's eventual sacrifice. Saying Goodnight, first aid, and floating in the skiff. More past history on Jack and of course more Riddick cuddling. If you had a Riddick wouldn't you want to cuddle him too? LMOA

Chapter Four, Out Of The Frying Pan…

Riddick found them a cave to hide in moving a big rock over the entrance after she Imam and Fry had gone inside. Fry looked surprised staring at the covered entrance before looking back at Jack and Imam. They all shared a look as Imam moved closer listening outside the cave entrance.

"Why is he still out there?" Fry asked, Jack looked at the ground and closed her eyes. "He's not coming back, is he?" She didn't need to answer Fry she could tell by the sound of Fry's voice that she knew the answer already.

The poured all the booze in one bottle getting every last drop in it. It still didn't last long the fire eventually slowly burning out she and Fry holding hands comfortingly. The cries from the creatures outside became almost overwhelming while Jack tried to think about her and Riddick's short time together. Then they noticed the glowing starting from the ceiling where these worms were and they began to gather them up stuffing them in the now empty bottle until it was full.

"I think I should be the one to go and bring back more light." Fry told her. "I know you and Riddick have gotten close…" Fry started but Jack cut her off.

"I think you should go too." She told her and Fry paused looking at her.

"You know?" Fry asked and she nodded. Yes she knew if she went after him he might actually force her to leave the others behind but if she stayed behind he might come back for her.

They wished Fry good luck before she left moving the rock back into place as best she could. Jack gathered the rest of the glowworms she could find and they nearly filled the bottle. They could hear the creatures outside as they tried to move the rock sometimes actually succeeding in moving it a bit. When the rock was finally pulled back neither she nor Imam were sure if it was the others.

Jack smiled when Fry appeared followed by Riddick and Jack finally started to believe they might get off the planet.

"Anyone not ready for this?" Riddick asked them.

"There is my god Mr. Riddick." Imam told him. They held hands as they ran Riddick first and Imam last until they reached a steep muddy hill. Riddick pushing her and Fry up it yelling at them as he did.

"Don't stop! Don't stop! Move! You know the way!" He ordered them.

Heart pounding all Jack could think about was doing what he said until she saw the inside of the skiff. That was when she realized she hadn't heard his orders from behind them for a while and turned to realize he'd fallen behind. They waited anxiously Jack shooting Imam a dirty look when he indicated he wanted to leave. That was when they heard Riddick's scream and Fry was off in the darkness after him before either she or Imam could move.

Jack kept thinking it should have been Imam or she who'd gone after him since Fry and Riddick were the only ones who could fly. She watched carefully in the direction Fry had gone, also looking carefully for any creatures. Finally she saw him staggering in the darkness alone and she ran out to him quickly bottle in hand.

"Get back on the skiff, damn it." Riddick ordered her gruffly.

"Fuck you, Riddick, you need help and we need you!" She complained wrapping his arm around her. Finally he complied letting her help him and they moved to the skiff slowly laboriously until Imam came and helped.

Sliding into the pilots seat Riddick started to fire up the engines the back closing on the ship. Imam sat fingering his prayer beads in the seats across from her near the back of the ship.

"With so much prayer to make up for, I scarcely know where to begin." Imam said.

"I know where I'd start." Jack told him, I'd pray some one other then pirates, mercs, or slavers picks us up. Suddenly Riddick started to power down the skiff turning all the lights and everything off. "Riddick, what are you doing?" She asked. Creatures began to land loudly on the ships hull around them surrounding the ship. "Riddick, can we just get the hell out of here now?"

"We can't leave." Riddick said turning to look at her. She jumped when one of the creatures attacked the cockpit window in front of him hitting it with its wedge-like head, Riddick not even starting. "Without saying goodnight." Riddick finished.

He powered everything up and began to pull up burning up the creatures around them. Plowing threw them as he began to pull up out of the atmosphere finally launching them into space. Jack moved up to the co-pilot seat next to Riddick strapping herself in.

"Lot of questions, whoever we run into. Could even be a merc ship. So what the hell do we tell them about you?" She asked him.

"Tell 'em Riddick's dead." Riddick said looking over at her, eyes shining in the light. "He died somewhere on the planet."

Sounded good to her, she just hoped they weren't interested in her either. She supposed she could tell Riddick about that, maybe get a few tips from him. She was worried he might feel responsible for her then and take her with him just for that reason. She knew she would only slow him down and be a weakness for him, something for mercs to exploit. So she'd keep that to herself and cherish what time she had left with him.

Imam set himself up in the back of the ship on the floor praying on his rug while they sat up front. Jack was just watching the planets as they passed them never having such a view before in her life. Whenever she was on a ship in space she tended to be in cryo sleep and that didn't include nice views. Jack sighed breathing in deeply threw her noise frowning at the smell blinking when she realized it was blood, Riddick's blood.

"Fuck, how's the leg?" She asked looking over at him.

He looked over at her in surprise before glancing down at his leg as she unstrapped from her chair.

"Bleeding slowed." He commented.

"I know Fry said she found a first aid kit in here, mines not entirely equipped for this. I have some vicodin left though. It's a full bottle, at least twenty-six left in it. Ah ha!" She cried digging it out of a panel above one of the passenger seats and pulling the small one out of her backpack on the seat. He moved the chair back so she could move around in front of his legs handing him the pill bottle and a water bottle. "It's a good thing Fry had the supply's in here already before the eclipse." She stated while she opened up the older first aid kit noting the large curved needle inside needed for stitching flesh.

"I'm assuming you've got some experience doing stitches?" She asked looking down at him smirking at her. "Find my discomfort amusing do you?" She asked him sarcastically and he smiled at her eyes twinkling and she laughed shaking her head. "Right, well you need to lose the planets so we can clean that before we decide what to do with it."

"Really, sure you're just not trying to get into my pants again?" He asked her and she laughed shaking her head.

"Please your hardly in the condition to be doing anything. Pants, off. Or do you want me to tell Imam not to peek?" She teased. Riddick glared at her before reaching down and unbuttoning and unzipping his pants. She helped him pulling them down carefully over his wound leaving them around his ankles. She frowned as she uncapped the bottle of alcohol from her kit glancing up at amused eyes.

"Just do it." He assured her and she sighed nodding and gently pouring some over the wound. She used a towel to keep most of it from running off into uncomfortable places Riddick giving no indications of the pain he had to be in. "Thread the needle?" Riddick asked her.

"Um are we sure this is still sanitary?" She asked holding up the thread, Riddick taking it to examine it closer.

"It's fine. Thread the needle for me." He told her and she nodded pulling the end free and threading the needle and tying it off before giving it to him. "I need you to press the skin together and hold it there while I stitch it together. Think you can handle that?" He asked and she nodded. She kneeled at his feet pressing the flesh together as he'd told her to holding it while he stitched it together.

Surprisingly she didn't mind watching him work, though she couldn't have ever done it to him. Herself, fine, even someone else but for some reason not him, it was very strange. Once he was finished she bandaged it up pressing a kiss on it before pulling his pants back up. She started to put everything away tucking the trash into a spare pocket before putting the kits away.

She moved to go back into the co-pilot's seat only to have Riddick grab her and pull her into his lap.

"Riddick, your leg!" She complained making him laugh.

"It'll be fine. Those're good stitches." He assured her.

"Aren't I hurting your leg though?" She asked him.

"No, you're on the other one." He assured her and she rolled her eyes.

"All right." She said. Though her voice sounding anything but all right as she wrapped her arm around his shoulders. She rested her face against his neck feeling comfortable and safe as she sat there.

"I hope you two aren't considering doing anything…indecent." Imam suddenly said from the back. Jack pulled back to look up at Riddick with a smirk and raised brow as he laughed out loud at the implication.

"Somehow Father I don't think Jack here is too interested in giving a show." Riddick told him.

"Damn right!" She exclaimed indignantly making Riddick laugh again while she mock glared at him.

"Would you like to pray with me Jack?" Imam asked her and she shuddered in Riddick's lap getting a frown from him.

"I stopped praying a long time ago Imam. Used to be a good little catholic girl who went to church everyday." She told him.

"And what happened child?" Imam asked her and she rolled her eyes at Riddick where Imam couldn't see getting a smirk from him.

"Well when I was eight, the Father at our Parish died of old age. Got a new one, and soon he was molesting me and two other girls in the neighborhood. After he raped me the first time I finally got up the nerve to tell my father. He went straight to the church and beat the man to death before being arrested. I prayed everyday for him to come home and be free again. The day I was told he'd been sentenced to life in prison for murder I stopped praying." She told Imam unsurprised to be met by silence Riddick pulling her tightly to him.

"Why do you go by Jack instead of Jackie?" Riddick asked her.

"My mother died of a heart attack six months after my father went to prison. I was ten and sent into foster care. The first family they sent me to the older son crawled into my bed at night. When I told his parents I got a beating and was sent back to the group home.

'Everywhere I was sent to another foster home it was the same thing there until I got sent to the last place. A group home run by this guy who liked to pimp out the kids and beat the ones who didn't comply. One night one of the kids killed him and those of us old enough took off for the streets. Some of the kids had friends to go to the rest of us scattered on the wind.

'After cutting off all my hair I dressed up like a boy. Everyone called me Jack, and while life was hard it was a lot better then it had been. I made some really good friends and when puberty hit and I couldn't hide my gender anymore they actually stuck around. Jack just stuck and when other people called me Jackie, well it just pissed me off." She told him making him laugh.

"It does seem to fit." Riddick replied.

"Yep, that's me, Jack. Just one of the guy's." Jack joked.

"Hardly one of the guys, Jack." Riddick said trailing his fingers between her breasts.

"Yeah, they noticed that to, eventually." She replied.

"So what were you doing on the ship with all those handy supplies?" Riddick asked her.

"Favor for a friend, helping him settle on this backwater of a planet. In return he has this ship for me, he won't be needing it anymore. He agreed to teach me to pilot it as well while we're working." She explained and she running from a mess she'd made with some fucked up mercs who'd gotten some wrong ideas about her.

"Sounds like a good deal." He told her and she nodded.

"Yeah Bret is cool if you can deal with him and his boyfriend Benji making out all over the place." She told him he looked up at her and she shrugged laughing. "I count my self lucky not to have seen them full on going at it, those two have no shame. You know, I don't know about you, but I am hungry."

"Yeah I think food was a long while ago." Riddick replied.

"Yeah, my cobbler was the last thing I remember eating." She replied Riddick lifting her from his lap and she moved over to where the MRE's where stored. "Want some Imam?" She asked him.

"Yes, thank you, child." Imam told her and she handed him one before taking two to the cockpit.

They ate in silence Jack wondering how long it would take them to run into someone and just who it would be. She left out the part of the story where she told them she had killed the old man, slowly. She also made sure the rest of the younger kids were gone and taken care of somewhere safe before she started. Then had come the running after taking money and anything she could sell.

She'd killed more on the streets, more in self-defense in those cases though. She was wanted in connection to several murders and had a bounty over her head under the name Jacquelyn Wolf. The id she used for the trip that she had on her was Jackie Anne Riker only everyone called her Jack. Her appearance was drastically different then that of her picture but that didn't mean some smart merc wasn't going to spot her.

Riddick explained he was going to turn everything off they didn't need to survive to conserve power so they soon found them self's shrouded in darkness. Imam made himself a make shift bed on the floor in the back of the skiff with the blankets Jack making one on the floor in between the passenger seats. She offered Riddick to lay down with her but he apparently wasn't tired yet and stayed sitting up. She curled up blankets wrapped around her pillowed under her body and head slipping off into and exhausted sleep.

Her back was afire in agony where the basterd had cut her when she'd refused again waiting where he'd left her lying in his bed until she knew it was time. He'd untied her, thinking she had no fight left in her as he went for the first aid kit. He didn't notice her hand slipping down to her cloths on the floor as he walked out of the room, the babies would be gone by now. He stopped when she wasn't on the bed when he returned falling to the floor with a howl as she sliced his hamstrings from behind him with the kitchen knife.

He flopped on the floor like a fish from the pain, as she stood naked before him, knife in hand. He opened his mouth drawing breath for a scream she knew and because she felt like it she struck him in the throat, just hard enough so he couldn't talk but not hard enough to kill. She pressed him down to the floor with a knee to his chest making it doubly hard for him to draw breath. She was enjoying watching him writhe in pain and fear under her the power she felt a heady thing.

After her mothers death her father had gotten a lawyer who had made it possible for his daughter to come and visit him in prison. Something he wasn't happy about but he didn't want his only child growing up without the influence of either of her parents. They talked about all kinds of things during their visits and he even had some friends on the outside teaching her to defend herself. She kept most of the worst stuff secrete from him though afraid if he knew he might break out and kill someone else.

He talked to her about the day that resulted in him getting sent to prison. Now he wished they'd sent the son of a bitch to prison himself because there he now knew the man would have gotten better justice there. He told her about the beast inside of him, his temper that was so quick to full blown uncontrollable rage. A temper he had passed on to her she found, a beast waiting in the depths for her to draw the first blood as she had that night.

She couldn't stop with that, just leaving him beaten and broken as she had planned to. The plan to leave him breathing and quiet literally half a man left her completely. She had tasted his blood and she wanted more, the beast inside demanded more. She didn't have to worry about anyone coming to the sound of his screams no one had ever come to the sound of the children's during the nights.

She could still hear his screams when she sat upright taste the arterial spray in her mouth from when she finally cut his throat. All she could see was darkness panting heart pounding in her chest as she stared forward at darkness mind spinning. Where the fuck was she? Georges place was never this dark he had a strip joint right across the street from him that equaled ungodly amounts of light.

Oh, no, that's right George was dead killed by those fucking mercs but that was okay she'd killed them right back. Okay, so then where the hell was she now? She tensed when she felt strong hands on her shoulders moving for the knife she usually kept in her boot.

"Jack, it was just a nightmare." Riddick assured her. She sighed stilling her hand and relaxing back against him feeling comfortable and safe.

"More like bad memories Riddick. I make any noise?" She asked him.

"Not a whole lot, just mostly a lot of tossing. Want to talk about it?" Riddick asked her and she glanced over to where she thought Imam was. "Fathers fast asleep." He assured her knowingly.

"It was just a really dark and bloody time in my life Riddick. It was about the first time I met the beast I have inside." She explained.

"What happened?" Riddick asked her and she sighed.

"Ask me again some other time?" She asked him and she felt him nod.

"So how is it your father gave you the knife for your birthday if he was in slam and you were on the run?" Riddick asked her.

"After my mothers death he got a lawyer who made it possible for me to visit him in slam. He didn't like me seeing him in there but without my mother around anymore he had no choice. Said he didn't want me growing up without the influence of either of my parents. He had me meeting some of his friends from slam on the outside.

'Guy's he knew who could teach me how to defend myself since I was going to have to take care of myself now. I never told him about most of the really bad stuff going on, didn't want him trying to break out to kill someone else. When I ran I made for one of those guy's places one I knew I could trust by the name of George. It was slow going and when I finally got there he had moved.

'Eventually I got to him when I was fifteen we were together for a while, George letting my father know I was okay and with him. Three months later dad slipped the slam and we had a bit of a reunion just in time for my birthday. The next three months of my life were the best, until mercs got wind of him and he had to run. Another year before he was caught and the last I heard of him he was shipped to Butcher Bay." She told him.

"Where I got my Shine job. What's his name?" Riddick asked her.

"Jack Wolf." She told him.

"Can't say I've heard of him." Riddick told her and she nodded.

"Yeah. Have you slept at all?" She asked him.

"Not yet." He told her.

"How about laying down for a while with me then?" She asked him trying to keep the pleading out of her voice.

"Sounds good to me." Riddick told her and they curled up together in her makeshift bed Jack drifting slowly back to sleep in his arms.

Jack woke some time later wrapped in Riddick's arms head pillowed comfortably on his chest. His breathing was slow and even and she assumed he was still asleep like she should probably be. She felt wide-awake though, when she had been asleep a moment before. It was as though something had woken her, though she couldn't say what.

If she listened closely while she lay there she could hear the slow and steady breathing of Imam. She closed her eyes and tried to will her self back to sleep though such tactic's never worked for her. That was when she started to hear it the gentle repetitive beeping noise coming from the direction of the cockpit. She looked up in its direction and sighed before slipping away from Riddick as gently as she could manage so she didn't wake him if it was nothing. Or translation, nothing they could do anything about.

An innocent green light was blinking on the board highlighting equally innocent seeming words 'proximity alert'.

"Riddick." She called gently from her seat clearing her throat loudly. She wasn't dumb enough to attempt to wake him by touch or even in arms reach. She couldn't see anything from the view screen so as far as she knew they weren't about to run into anything. Still she could be wrong or someone could be approaching them from behind. They may not be able to do anything about that but Riddick would most definitely want to be awake. "Riddick." She called out. "Riddick, wake up!" She said in a slightly louder voice.

"What is it Jack?" Riddick sleep filled voice came from the dark and she thought she heard the sound of movement from the floor by him.

"There is a light flashing that's a proximity alert." She explained.

A moment later Riddick was in the pilot's seat reading the board and pushing some buttons. The tension in the skiff had sky rocketed and she wondered if her life would ever be boring. Riddick's life clearly wasn't boring as he sat there soaking in the high tension looking cool as a cucumber. It was making her very jealous wondering how he managed to keep that cool.

She was presently nervous as hell and more then a little peeved at the makers of the ship. I mean come on what kind of bullshit is that? You'd think innocent little words like proximity alert would be accompanied by flashing red lights and sirens not a green blinking and soft fucking beeping noise! The bigger surprise she thought was that it had woken her before it had woken Riddick. Prison did not make for light sleepers he must've been exhausted.

Suddenly the ship shuddered and gave a violent jerk back before continuing backwards at a more sedate pace. They were being pulled in Imam jerking awake in the back of the skiff.

"Is something wrong?" Imam asked from the back.

"Oh not really. Not unless you consider ships who sneak up on your ass and pull you in without one communiqué wrong." She told him idly.

"Perhaps I should pray." Imam said and she raised a brow in question.

"Not for me." Riddick muttered.

At a time like this and Imam was going to pray? Nothing much better to do she supposed but still it struck her as a time for action, planning or deep thinking. After all, they were being sucked back into some unknown ship, run by uncommunicative people. For all they knew they were being pulled out of the frying pan and into the fire, the only thing they had going for them…they didn't know who they were fucking with.