Within The Storm |AU| Riddick/Jack

Nothin' good lasts forever.

-*Five Hours Earlier*-

It had been lingering in her mind all morning and bled into the afternoon; like the fading rays of the two soft glowing suns that fell off into the darkness of night... It stayed with her. The planet they had called home; low light conditions with the ever present and sometimes strongly persistent, storms and rainfalls, making it cold, wet and generally downright unlivable. But to her and her Hero, it was a delicate paradise, hidden from those who would peer too closely at the faces that ghosted by.

Not many wandered freely in this cold void of a planetoid. So small and insignificant, but large enough for lost travelers to stay a spell before pushing off back into the Black. Very few remained...only the strongest, the ones hell bent on survival.

Their perfect refuge from all the light and the noise...everything they'd come to hate...

She looked up at his powerful silhouette as she sat at the small dining room table, and he, strong and silent, leaned against the wall, giving her only the left side of his profile, his arms held against his broad chest, his head turned to the right while looking past the shadowed living room toward the open window.

The dark drapes swelled and danced as a cool, moist breeze fluttered through the slight crack in the window, secured behind several, three inch thick steel bars that guarded the outside from curious thieves.

Clearing her throat in silence, she gathered herself and began to speak, "Riddick." It was just one word, his name...always haunting the very crevices of her mind...which she said softly, fearfully...knowing this could no longer be avoided, "there's somethin'..." she paused and tried again, "look, we gotta talk."

Silent, he turned his body toward her, the shock of his blue silver gaze causing her chest to tighten, no matter how many times he'd looked at her in the dark. "What about." He stated with that low, reverberating growl and appeared as cold and as calm as a stone sentinel amidst a graveyard. Not surprising, he was always calm and contemplative just before a new storm, as though the charge in the air spoke to him.

She took a deep breath. Easy Jack, easy...don't fuck this up. She said inwardly, hoping with everything her voice would come out strong. "Well..." she trailed off, knowing he was listening. "How long has it been Riddick? Our situation, I mean."

He was quiet for a few moments when his gravely tone echoed from his expressionless face, "Ten years."

Jack nodded, mouth pursed in thought. Gods help her, she didn't want to say what was a breath away from spilling past her dry lips...but she had to do it. "In all these years..." she trailed off, unable to stop the painful ball of anxiety that had welled up and lodged itself in the back of her throat.

The softness in her words had gotten his attention. Jack wasn't actin' like her usual cocky self. There was somethin' different about her...it was written in the lines of her posture; the slight slouch in her shoulders, the way her hands appeared apprehensive as she fidgeted nervously with the silver panther ring on the middle finger of her right hand. The very faint scent of salt from the tiny beads of sweat that began to form over her upper lip and along her brow.

What's goin' on in that head'a'yours kid? He thought to himself, his internal dialogue and emotions completely different from the dark serenity of his surface. He knew she was hinting at something...a familiar somethin' he himself had been avoiding...but lately, not completely. If anything, Riddick had been dancing dangerously along a razor's edge of curiosity, wondering why it was that he was becoming...ever the more drawn to her. He hadn't fought it like he should have. Perhaps he just didn't feel it was necessary to. Perhaps a deeper level of his psyche had a perfectly rational explanation for his blooming affection for her.