He Didn't Come

“So, think you can tell me where we’re going yet?” Jack asked, looking at him expectantly at him over breakfast one morning.

Riddick suppressed a sigh. He was beginning to have second thoughts about his scheme. He wanted to give her a chance to come to terms with her past… and hell, he wanted a chance to find Seth and Charles and ghost their asses for what they’d done to her. Ghost them slowly, and very, very painfully. The carefully controlled aggression she displayed in the dojo had a root somewhere, and damned if he wasn’t going to help her deal with it.

Did she want his help, though? Though he knew better than to think she truly hated his guts—why else would she have come to him?—she was still painfully distant. There was a façade in place that was different from the one she had as a child. This was as strong as iron, not brittle and shaky. He wanted their old connection back. This cold and aloof Jack was as alien to him as love had once been inconceivable.

He delayed his answer, but the look she gave him was familiar. It said, ‘Don’t dick around here, asshole.’

“We’re going to New Germany.”

Silence. “Why?” she asked finally, sounding very angry. He knew this anger wasn’t genuine, however. This anger masked insecurity and fear. He could read it in her eyes.

Riddick thought about lying, but decided against it. She was leery enough at the moment. “I think it’s a good idea for you to confront some things.”

Her voice rose shrilly. “Like what? ‘Oh, let’s have a nice walk down memory lane. Let’s see where Jackie the whore spent four years learning how do her job real well.’ Fuck that!”

“Shut up, Jack,” Riddick ordered, more harshly than he intended. “Just shut the fuck up. You understand?”

Her face drained of color as his words assaulted her, and her eyes puddled with tears. They didn’t fall, however. He could practically feel the force of her will, holding them back.

He instantly regretted his phrasing. “Jack, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that the way it sounded. I just hate hearing you talk about yourself like that.”

She shrugged, and the gesture cut Riddick just as deeply as any tears she cried. The nonchalance on her face chilled him. The immediate detachment… it wasn’t a thing like her disassociated trances, but it spoke of underlying pain that she wasn’t acknowledging.

“Jack,” he asked slowly, “how do you feel about sex?”

The question surprised both of them. He intended to ask how she felt about her past, but on second thought, how she responded to the question he actually asked aloud would tell him that, and so much more. Why he made the Freudian slip in the first place was territory he didn’t even want to touch at the moment.

She was quiet, thoughtful. “I haven’t let myself think about it,” she answered just as slowly as he’d asked. “The idea of being touched… there… it scares me. It makes me want to throw up and hit something and hide, all at the same time. But…” her voice trailed off, and she stared at him, begging him with her big, beautiful eyes to let her stop talking.

Riddick only motioned for her to continue. She took a deep breath and gazed down at the table before speaking again.

“But there were times when I liked it, too,” she said defiantly, daring him to judge her. He kept his face deadpan. He needed to hear how she truly felt.

She went on, “Like, sometimes, when Seth touched me… if felt good. But it was bad. He told me that I was being—“ she grimaced— “a good girl, but he hurt me so badly if he found out I liked it. I knew what we were doing was wrong, so I knew I deserved the pain. The good feelings… it’s so bad. It’s wrong.”

“What’s wrong, Jack?”

“Touching… feeling things down there. It’s dirty. He made me feel so dirty, Riddick….”

This was, he realized, the first time she’d ever spoken about how she felt about her past. She really felt that way? Sex was supposedly one of the most beautiful things in the world, with the right person- or so he’d heard. He was becoming more and more suspicious that with her, sex would be the most amazing thing he would ever experience. But if she truly felt that way, there was no chance it would happen. He refused to hurt her.

“Jack, it’s not dirty if it’s with someone you care about. Sex is-“

She interrupted him, hardly seeming aware that he had spoken. “And then with Jason- he hurt me every time. He’d hit me and yell at me and be so rough. I figured I deserved it, though. It’s what he told me. With Seth it wasn’t so terrible all the time….”

Riddick spoke firmly, wishing he could hold her. She’d probably freak out if he tried. “Jack, sex should never make you feel dirty. It doesn’t have to hurt. Sex is… wonderful. If you care about your partner.” He fixed her big, scared eyes with his own. “Why do you think they’re called partners? It’s something you do with someone, not to someone. You follow?” He was in unfamiliar territory, too, but he didn’t want to tell her that. She was the first person he’d really cared about, and though he wanted her on a very physical level, the protective mentality from when she was a child was still present. The problem was that she wasn’t a child anymore. He didn’t know how he felt about her. All he’d known when it came to physical intimacy was the feeling of someone’s lifeblood spilling over his hands. Sex had never been intimate to him. It was just a way to get off that felt a little bit better than some one-on-one with his hand.

Riddick didn’t know what the fuck he wanted. There was no way that he could appear unsure in front of Jack, though.

She shook her head helplessly, and placed it on her folded arms, which were resting on the table. “I… it’s… no. It’s wrong. It would just hurt.” Riddick suppressed yet another sigh, but suddenly, she lifted her deep eyes to his face. “Why did you ask me that?”

Surprised, he fumbled for an answer that wouldn’t send her screaming into her room to barricade the door. There was no way he could tell her that he fantasized about fucking her senseless all night—and a good part of the day. Not if she was that afraid.

“I… we… well...,” he stumbled. Yeah, real smooth, asshole, he ripped at himself angrily. “I’m worried about you. You don’t hate me, I know that much. But you seem to stay as far away from me as you possibly can, emotionally. I couldn’t help wondering-“ Shut up, shut up, shut up!

“Wondering what, Riddick?”

Fuck it. Maybe shock treatment would be good for her. It could snap her out of her emotional paralysis. And maybe if he could control his libido, he would have a much better chance at preventing Jack from trying to shiv him in his sleep.

“Is it because you’re attracted to me, but are afraid of it?” He didn’t know how she felt, but he had a feeling that the tension she felt around him wasn’t just the awkwardness of being reunited.

At the shock that slid onto her face, Riddick felt a moment of bittersweet triumph. Her expression of shock quickly turned to disgust, however. Disgust at him? Disgust at herself? God, no, don’t let her hate herself the way I’m starting to think she does….

“I liked me again until you brought this up,” she whispered in a hollow voice.

Swiftly, Riddick spoke. “Jack, you are the strongest, bravest, most beautiful woman I know. You have no reason to hate yourself.” Okay, now he sounded like a character in a bad soap opera. Listing her qualities on his fingers wouldn’t make her trust him any more than jumping her bones would. He tried again. “Believe me, physical attraction….” He shrugged. “It’s just a part of being human. Emotion, no matter what kind, is so much more than that. Don’t you remember? You taught me how to care. Well, guess what? I still care. Trust me.” It had nothing to do with sex. But hell, he wanted sex. What the fuck was wrong with him? What was he after? And whatever it was, was it because of who she was or what she was?

Well, she was eighteen. It made her legal, but he didn’t understand his own motivations yet. That meant they couldn’t do a damn thing until he got it sorted out in his head.

Jack shrugged before suddenly burying her face in her hands. She was crying. Shit.

“I’m sorry,” Riddick began awkwardly.

“For what?” As she said this, she removed her hands and wiped her face. “You’re right. I’ve never felt this way about anyone, and it scares the shit out of me.”

Riddick extended a powerful hand across the small table, intending to stroke her cheek. She flinched, but held herself still. He was impressed by her bravery. “Jack, you like it when I hug you. Why does the rest of my touch scare you?”

She closed her eyes and whispered, “Just don’t hurt me.”