Chapter Thirty-five: Riddick - Consequence

Who am I? he thought in confusion. The answer took a long moment to come to him.

Richard B. Riddick. Escaped Convict. Murderer. Psycho.

Psycho.

He'd had a psychotic attack. A bad one. He still didn't know how bad it had been. First he had to figure out if it was over. First he had to figure out where and when he was, as well.

He listened to the noises around him, sampling the scents in the air. The hum of a ship's drive, muted. A ship in space, but not moving. His ship? Yeah, he knew that hum intimately. His ship. The "Whatsername."

Scent of Jack's perfume in the air, faint but beautiful. Charmante, it was called. Appropriate name, given the wearer. Jack was on board. And an adult. All grown up. The object of his desire...

Okay, I know who, where and when I am. What now? Primes. Count out the primes.

He kept his eyes closed for the moment as he began counting.

One, two, three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen... He counted out the prime numbers slowly in his mind, not stopping until he'd passed the thousand mark. His cognitive skills were intact. Good. That was something, at least.

Now it's time to find out what the hell kind of mess I've made this time, he thought with a groan. He opened his eyes.

He was lying among the wreckage of the dojo. Around him, every piece of equipment was scattered, twisted and ruined. The stuffing from the punching bag lay in drifts throughout the room. Pieces clung to his skin where his sweat had dried them onto him.

He sat up with another groan. He hadn't had a bout of psychosis this bad in almost a decade. Not since...

Not since Ruth, he reminded himself. And that one, at least, could be blamed on the drugs that crazy bitch had slipped into his drink. He'd gone completely over the edge this time.

At least I felt it coming, he thought as he pulled himself to his feet. At least I had time to get Jack out of harm's way.

Had he, though? An odd image swam through his mind, of Jack's frightened face as she peered at him from the opening into the upper deck. A memory of shouting at her to get back into her room before it was too late...

Well, I guess she's seen the monster, he thought with a stab of exquisite pain. He glanced around at the extraordinary mess the beast within him had made. Nothing appeared to be salvageable.

Picking bits of stuffing off of his skin, he headed for the ladder. There were some strong garbage bags upstairs. He'd just load everything in and jettison it. At least the expensive personal equipment and all of Jack's things had been locked away. At least he hadn't had an actual load of cargo on hand to destroy.

He checked on Jack briefly while upstairs and was pleased to find that she had locked her door. That meant she'd stayed safe from him while the beast was loose. Behind her door, he could hear the rhythmic breathing of sleep. He decided not to wake her yet. The mess was his to clean up first.

He spent the next hour filling bags with the wreckage and loading them into the waste unit. He'd have to jettison this crap later, once he'd figured out where they were going. If he did it now, it would just bounce off of the Oort debris surrounding them and come right back at the ship.

Climbing back up to the living quarters level, he went over to the cockpit and keyed in a systems diagnostic. He showered while it ran. Then he changed into a fresh set of clothes and returned for the results.

Fuck, he thought after a moment. Hull's fine, but fuel is extremely low. We'll have to return to Troubadour to refuel before we can go anywhere.

Just what he wanted to do, play tag with Jarvis again. Good old Reggie would now have another twenty-four or so deaths to hate him for.

Well, he thinks I took off for the Terran Sector. With luck, he won't even think of looking for us in New Paris after all that. Maybe we can sneak back in. Shit, I'll have to find out if any of our electronic profiles weren't discovered by that fucking tracer program...

He glanced over at the door to Jack's room. Poor kid had no idea what she'd unleashed. And that, he reflected, was his fault. He'd had no clue she was into hacking; it had never even occurred to him to ask. He had no idea what had possessed her to try breaking into the Charybdis mainframe, but he couldn't really blame her. He'd better see how she was holding up.

He knocked gently on her door. "Jack? It's safe to come out now, kid."

Silence.

"Jack? You okay in there?" He waited, growing anxious. "Come on, I need to know you're alright. Say something, Darlin'."

After another moment he heard the soft creak of her mattress and then the sound of her feet padding toward the door. The lock clicked and the door swung inwards, framing Jack's face.

What he saw in her tearstained face stabbed him to the core. He had never seen such despair on any human being's face before. She was still in her clothes from yesterday, now a little wrinkled from being slept in. Her hair was disheveled and messy. But the desolation in her eyes...

"Oh god, Jack. Are you okay?" He moved forward to put his arms around her and felt pain lance through him yet again when she shrank back. He forced himself not to pull her into his arms. If he'd harmed her and she was afraid of him, doing so would only make things worse.

I thought I stayed away from her. I thought she was safe from me... what did I do to her? I don't remember anything...

A lack of memory, though, meant very little. Several of his most vicious murders in Slam, back when he'd first been committed, were things he had no recollection of. And he knew what the darkest side of him wanted from her. If he'd raped her...

"What did I do, Jack? What did I do to you? Please tell me." He wasn't used to hearing such desperation in his own voice.

She stared at him for a long moment. When she finally spoke it was in a pained, husky whisper. "You scared me... I've never seen you look like that before."

"But did I do anything to you? Did I hurt you?" In another moment he was going to fall on his knees before her or something.

She shook her head. "Just yelled at me to get in my room."

Profound relief washed over him. He leaned against the door jamb and sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. "God, Jack, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry you had to see me like that. It's been years since that happened--"

"And it's my fault!" she squeaked tearfully. He opened his eyes in time to see her face before she turned away. She threw herself down on her bed and curled her body into a tiny ball, arms wrapped around her knees. "Me and my stupid curiosity! It's my fault they came and almost caught us..."

"No!" He hurried over to the side of her bed. "You didn't know what would happen. I should have told you. I would have, too, except it never occurred to me you were so good with computers."

He was a little shocked, now that he thought about it. Computer classes had been one area, according to Jack's records, that she did not do well in at all. Protective coloration? Had she been posing as a computer illiterate even as she perfected her hacking skills? Clever girl. She'd fooled everyone, even him.

She must have been dying to take his hardware for a test-drive. Now she thought she'd crashed the family vehicle and had hell to pay. Poor kid...

"They never would've come to Troubadour if it wasn't for me," she insisted, sniffling. "I mean, if I'd told you sooner, we coulda gotten away clean..."

"Are you saying that you broke into the Charybdis files before yesterday, Jack?" He'd wondered how Jarvis had gotten on-site so fast, himself.

"No... just the law enforcement files. I wanted to, though. So I could read Dr. Aspen's stuff. I was going to, but you came home early that night and I--"

He sighed. However it was that Jarvis had figured out his whereabouts, it wasn't Jack's doing. "Hon, if yesterday was the first time you broke into the Charybdis files, it ain't your fault. I must've done something to attract Jarvis' attention before you started hacking."

Probably, now that he thought about it, Pete. He'd used an MO that was bound to make Jarvis stand up and take notice. At the time, it had seemed the only logical way to kill the man. A message to the worlds about exactly what would happen to anyone who messed with the girl he loved.

Jarvis had gotten the message. No wonder Pete's exploits hadn't been reported. As soon as they realized the identity of his murderer, the whole story had been hushed up until Reggie could come to town.

He reached out to take Jack's hand and winced when he saw the dark bruise encircling her wrist. His fault. His doing. He'd vowed that he'd never, ever make her wear a look of such suffering, and yet this was the second time in one fucking week.

Admit it, you psycho-fuck bastard. You're poison to this girl. You've fucked up her life every time you two have been together. If you had any sense, you'd let her go.

He was going to lose her. There was no way she'd ever want to be anywhere near him again after this.

"Jack, I'm so sorry," he managed after a moment. The words felt completely inadequate. "I never meant to hurt you. None of this was your fault."

After a moment, she raised her eyes tto his. "What happened? Why did you... do those things?" Her breath hitched. "It was like I was looking at a total stranger. I was so scared..."

The ache pierced him again. "Jack, what you saw... that's the thing that's still inside me. I had an attack of psychosis. Most of the time I can keep it under control, but..." He took a deep breath. "The concentration I had to maintain during the battle took everything out of me. I didn't have any strength left to fight it. Only thing I could do was try to get as far away from you as I could before it hit."

He bent his head, filled with shame for the first time in his life. "I told you there was nothing loveable about it."

She sat up slowly. "I thought..." She closed her eyes, shaking her head sadly.

"What, Jack?" He rose from his crouch and sat down next to her on the bed, putting his hand on her shoulder. This time she didn't pull away. She leaned against him.

"I thought you hated me," she whispered softly.

"Oh god, Jack, no!" How could she think such a thing? Didn't she know he loved her?

And how would she know that, asshole? he asked himself. Have you ever told her? Even once?

Had he? He forced himself to think back. No. He'd never actually said it. The word "love" had never passed his lips even one time. He'd thought she'd known; she'd indicated that she did several times, but he'd never said the words. He'd let his actions do the speaking for him...

And if that was the case, what had his actions of yesterday said to her? No wonder she'd cringed from him. Especially if she had thought she'd been personally responsible for his madness.

He lifted her chin with one hand, making her meet his eyes. "Jack, I don't hate you. I could never, ever hate you. I love you, kid."

She sniffled again, blinking away tears. They were rolling down her cheeks slowly. Tears he'd forced her to shed. He bent his head and brought his lips to her cheek, kissing one of them away. Turning her head slightly, he kissed the tear off of her other cheek as well.

He stroked her hair gently, smoothing it down. Her lips were still trembling a little. One tear had left a long track down her face and now shivered in the corner of her mouth. He bent down again without thinking.

His mouth touched hers just as she drew breath to speak. Her inhalation pulled his lips against hers more tightly and locked them together. For a moment Riddick felt like he was being electrocuted. The world around him abruptly ceased to exist. There was only the kiss, and the girl in his arms.

He pulled her closer, parting her lips with his and deepening the kiss, groaning even as he did so. He shouldn't be doing this... he needed to stop... this was wrong...

But he couldn't break free. His hands went to her waist and legs, lifting her onto his lap. He couldn't let go of her now. One hand stayed pressed against her lower back. The other moved to the back of her head, drawing her even closer. His tongue slid between her parted lips and began exploring the inside of her mouth.

A thrill of fear speared through him. Oh god, he thought, I can't stop...

Then he felt her arms come around his shoulders, her hands settling on the back of his head and neck. As her own tongue slid past his and into his mouth, the thrill became one of exultation.

She doesn't want me to!