Title: Helpless
Author: Savage Midnight
Email: [email protected]
Rating: PG
Summary: When Jack falls sick, Riddick is rendered helpless.
Disclaimer: Any characters/concepts familiar to the Pitch Black universe belong to the creators of the film.
Feedback: Constructive criticism is welcome; as an aspiring author I'm in dire need of it.
Author's notes: Okay, this is my first Pitch Black fic in over a year so I might be a little rusty. On a warning note, this is pure comfort fluff (with a large dribble of angst) and deals with issue of child abuse. I want to thank ginnymae for helping me with the medical side of this fic and thanks to everyone who provided me with links at the AoVD message board.

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Part One

Jack clutched at her stomach, clenching her teeth fiercely as another cramp gripped her insides and twisted. She bit back a painful whimper and swallowed it down with a heavy gulp of air, feeling it rise back up in her chest and escape as a half-strangled hiccup.

She wanted to cry. She was restless and exhausted; last night's sleep had eluded her, because the pains in her stomach had not ceased in the darkness. They had only grown in their intensity and now Jack was a whimpering mass of frayed nerves, curled up into a tight, uncomfortable ball. Her back ached but she knew if she straightened her spine the cramps would become a little more agonising and a little less bearable and Jack couldn't afford to break what little control she had. She couldn't afford to cry.

But it was too late. A tremor rumbled through her stomach, rolling into a cramp that snagged at her insides again, tying them into knots and sending white-hot pain lancing up her spine and to her groin. She clenched her eyes shut and a lone tear squeezed it's way out from beneath her lashes.

She felt it slide helplessly down the side of her cheek and watched solemnly as it dripped onto her pillow. She closed her eyes.

Save your tears, kid. You're gonna need 'em.

Tears are a weakness, she thought bitterly. Riddick had taught her that. He'd taught her that tears were only to be wasted on worthwhile occasions. Death. Loss. Heartache. Even then her tears were only to be wept in private, because he'd warned her that people who would use them against her; they would twist her weakness into a weapon and she wouldn't even see it coming until those tears ran in crimson rivers.

People were entitled to the occasional moments of weakness, he said, but people like them couldn't afford the luxury too often. Why waste it?

She'd learned to save her tears, because she knew that one day she would undoubtedly need them. One day she would have no choice but to weep and sob, because she knew what it would mean if that day ever came. The thought of it was almost unbearable and now, as she lay, willing her tears to cease, she felt ashamed.

She felt ashamed because Jack was on her period, and she was weeping. She was crying because she was in pain, because she was tired, and now the rising urge to sob louder and harder rose up, because Jack had wasted her tears on something so trivial. She'd wasted precious tears that she knew she would one day need and the guilt bloomed in her chest and sucked the air from her lungs.

I ain't always gonna be here to protect you, Jack, and when I'm gone, I'm gonna need you to be tough. You got that, kid?

God, two years on and her hormones still managed to tear her self-control away. Every month since Riddick had rescued her and Imam from the planet, her periods had grown ever more painful, until Jack had been forced to lock herself in her bedroom for four days out of every month, just in case her tears happened to slip free. She didn't want Riddick to see, didn't want to catch the disappointment and shame glittering in his mercury eyes. She'd spent so long trying to convince him that she wasn't a liability to him and she wasn't about to jeopardise that now just because her treacherous body delighted in torturing her.

She would soon get a hold of it, she was sure. Even now she'd learnt how to cope with the suffocating cramps. It was only occasionally that they reached such an unbearable pitch and it was on those rare occasions that she spent several days and nights trying to convince Riddick that no, there was nothing wrong and no she wasn't hiding anything from him, she just wanted a little time to herself. She often told him that these were her "personal days", time she took out of her busy schedule to relax and breathe a little.

For the last six or seven months he hadn't bothered to question her about it and Jack planned on keeping it that way.

She glared angrily at the wet patch on her puddle and caught a glimpse of a glistening tear from the corner of her eye. She lifted a hand to rub it away roughly and swallowed back yet another sob as a wave of nausea wiggled it's way through her stomach and up her throat. Her eyes burned, her head ached and her throat was sore and painfully tight. She was fatigued and achy. Quiet sobs bubbled threateningly under the surface and Jack wanted nothing more than to let them out, certain she would feel increasingly better if she did.

But she couldn't and the thought depressed her even more. All she wanted to do was bury herself under her covers and sleep but the knots in her stomach refused to loosen and she knew the cramps would not cease for at least another day or two. No matter what she tried, the cramps came and went like clockwork and there was nothing Jack could do about it.

Once she'd tried painkillers, hoping to sooth the painful cramps, but they'd only served to make her more nauseous and she'd spent a good part of the day throwing them back up again. Luckily Riddick had been at work. Unluckily, her dry-heaving had pulled a few stomach muscles and she'd been forced to remain in bed for an extra day that month. She never tried painkillers again.

Right now, though, she was more than tempted to let Riddick knock her out with a well-aimed fist. She'd end up with a nice shiner at the end of it, but she felt it would be a worthwhile sacrifice, even if it did only grant her a few hours of peaceful sleep.

Unfortunately she had a feeling Riddick wouldn't agree. It seemed she had no choice but to suck it up and stick it out for the next day or two.

Just great.

"Jack?"

Riddick's voice filtered through her bedroom door and Jack shot a panicked glance towards it. She wiped at her eyes roughly and took a few gulps of air.

"Yea--h." Another cramp twisted her insides, and her reply trailed off into a broken whisper. She hoped Riddick hadn't noticed.

"You okay, kid?"

She swallowed heavily and clutched at her stomach, tightening her grip in an attempt to stave off the cramps.

"I'm--I'm good," she lied. She bit down on her lip, hard, but the pain was short-lived, replaced by white-hot fire that lanced it's way through her belly. She tasted blood but didn't care.

"Jack?"

Shit.

"I'm fine, Ridd--ick."

"You don't sound fine."

"I--"

Oh, God, why was this happening to her? Why she couldn't be like the other girls and have normal fuckin' periods? It seemed that ever since she'd landed on that planet her periods had constantly tried to kill her, whether it was by luring deadly creatures in her general vicinity or by squeezing her guts into tight, complicated knots that would undoubtedly suffocate her one day. Either way, she wondered what she'd done to deserve bodily functions from hell. She also wondered why she hadn't been born a boy. Life would have been a whole lot simpler if she had been.

Jack remembered her first period. She remembered how her mother hadn't cared when her twelve-year-old daughter started bleeding all over the floor. Jack had panicked, because her mother hadn't bothered to explain what was happening to her. Jack had thought she was dying and her mother had thought it was funny. She'd spent the next three days locked in her bedroom, weeping and screaming because something just wasn't right. From then on, as the months dragged on and she'd learned from other sources what the regular loss of blood meant, she'd grown more wary of her own body. Every month she had feared that other changes might occur or that she would one day die from blood loss.

Childish, really, but Jack had never had someone reliable enough in her life to explain these things to her. She'd had to learn from experience and this particular experience had left her with an underlining fear that her body would one day betray her. That fear had been reinforced during her time on the planet, when her body had not only put herself in danger, but others, too; others she had come to care about.

It was times like this, when she spent days locked in her bedroom, that served only to drag up her miserable past; a past that came drenched in trauma and heartache. It was no wonder that she felt so depressed and weepy at this time of the month. The memories alone were enough to depress anyone, without the gut-wrenching pains making it worse.

Jack heard the low beeping of the intercom and her eyes snapped back to the door. She listened, realising instantaneously that Riddick was letting himself in. With a half-strangled cry, she threw herself off of the bed and scrambled into the bathroom. She heard the soft hiss of the door and Riddick's heavy footsteps just as the bathroom door - a simple, wooden contraption with a heavy, brass handle - slammed shut behind her.

She slumped against it and closed her eyes as angry waves of nausea rose up. Tears stung her eyes and she swallowed past the sudden lump in her throat.

"Kid?"

Go away. Go away. Go away.

"Jack, open the door."

"I'm--" Breathe. Swallow. Breathe. "--I'm not dressed."

"Bullshit, kid. Open the fuckin' door."

"Riddick, I--"

The nausea rose up in her throat and Jack lurched forward, grabbing the old, porcelain toilet with two shaking hand. She drank in heavy gulps of air, but it did no good and it was with a strangled cry that her stomach emptied itself, drowning out the sound of the door opening behind her.

"Jack."

Oh God, Riddick, go away. Please.

She didn't want him to see her like this. Weak. Emotional. Vulnerable. Not to mention the fact that she was ashamed and humiliated. She felt degraded, because the one person she looked up to and trusted was witnessing one of the lowest moments in her life.

For a short moment her heaving ceased and she heard Riddick behind her, kneeling down to rub her back. He pulled the hair back from her face and the simple gesture brought more tears to her eyes. She was suddenly filled with an overwhelming love for him. Despite being at her weakest, despite being openly vulnerable in front of him, he was still taking care of her.

He didn't scold her or lecture her, but simply waited as her stomach emptied itself completely. Her retching finally ended, leaving her breathless and trembling, and her skin sheened with sweat.

She heard the toilet flush near her ear as her head came to rest against the cool lid. A loud sob escaped without her permission and she tried to swallow it back to no avail.

Riddick most surely would have heard it, but right at this moment she didn't care. She sighed tiredly and closed her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Riddick," she whispered absently, swallowing back the acrid taste that coated the back of her throat. Tears pooled onto the lid of the toilet and she felt the wetness of them against her cheek.

Riddick didn't say anything and his silence only served to make her feel worse. Her earlier shame rose up and gripped her chest painfully and a heartbroken sigh cracked the air in the bathroom.

He was mad. He was disappointed because she'd succumbed to the simple weaknesses of the body; weaknesses she should have been able to overcome. She had proved outright that she was a liability to him, one that Riddick could not afford. He would soon realise that he was in no position to be looking after a dysfunctional sixteen-year-old with the pain threshold of a dying rabbit and one day she knew he would be forced to leave her behind.

She wasn't truly sure if she would be able to cope if he did.

She heard the heavy shuffle of feet behind her and reluctantly pushing herself up from the floor, she turned around only to find him gone.

She dropped her gaze to the tile floor beneath her feet and brushed at the wetness on her cheeks angrily. She hiccupped and swallowed past the painful lump in her throat, stepping through to her bedroom and closing the bathroom door behind her. With heavy, glistening eyes, she peered up towards the open door of her bedroom, only to be greeted by a dark, silent hallway.

"Sorry," she mumbled softly and wrapped a protective arm around her waist, tightening it around herself in another attempt to stave off the cramps that had not abated in the wake of her sickness. Her groin ached and pain lanced up her spine and down her thighs, pulling her muscles into tight, uncomfortable knots.

God, she would kill for some sleep right now. It had been a good thirty hours since she had slept and now she was getting restless and agitated. Her mood swings were setting in and in the silence of her room, she shifted seamlessly between angry and depressed, frustrated and resigned. Her misery brought stinging tears to her eyes, and her anger dried them.

She settled down on her bed and rubbed tiredly at her eyes. She hiccupped loudly and flopped back onto sweat-soaked sheets, curling herself back into the same fetal position as earlier. She closed her eyes and listened absently to the soft buzzing of the silence, which was suddenly and unexpectedly broken by the thudding of familiar boots.

She cracked an eye open to see Riddick standing beside her bed, a washcloth cradled in one, large hand. She opened her mouth to ask him what he was doing, but her voice couldn't seem to find its way past her tongue, which lay thick and heavy against the roof of her mouth.

"Relax, kid," Riddick said, settling his heavy frame down on the bed beside her. The washcloth in his hand came to rest against her forehead and she welcomed the refreshing coolness of it against her skin.

This isn't normal, she thought solemnly. Cramps, yes. Mind-numbing cramps, definitely. But vomiting? That wasn't usually part of the package and Jack silently contemplated the thought that maybe this wasn't a result of mere period pains.

It was with a pitying moan that she reluctantly admitted to herself that she was sick. Jack. was. sick.

God, this wasn't happening to her. Jack hadn't been sick for years and she'd hoped to keep it that way. Whenever sickness did manage to take a hold of her, it was with a firm, harsh grip which always left her bed-ridden, and it seemed that this time was no different. She would undoubtedly be in bed for more than four days this month.

Just great.

She peered up at Riddick's looming form as she felt the cloth move to sweep the curve of her cheek and the length of her neck. She smiled gratefully at him and grabbed his large wrist in her small hand.

"Period pains," she croaked, by way of explanation. She felt miserably childish saying it but he deserved to know the reasons for her inability to stand upright and talk coherently. Even now, as she lay wallowing in her own self-pity, he was taking it upon himself to take care of her.

Here he was, known convict and natural killer, nursing a teenage girl who was in no way his responsibility. He'd wasted time on her, teaching her the most important lessons that would later prove to be a necessity, and for three years had protected her and supported her, financially and emotionally.

Jack was sure she would never find a way to show him how grateful she was. He'd saved her in more ways than one, on more than one occasion and Jack knew there was no reward big enough to repay her saviour. She only hoped he knew how thankful she was, and how ashamed she felt for betraying the lessons he had instilled in her.

In spite of her shame, she loved him intensely. She loved him as much as any sixteen-year-old girl could, with the devotion and the loyalty of a daughter, and the passion and recklessness of a young woman. In the last three years her faith in him had not wavered and it was in moments like these that her faith was strengthened and redefined, again and again and again.

In her childlike naivety, Jack truly believed she had weakened his faith in her, and her young, loyal heart broke at the thought.

"Jack."

Riddick's deep voice vibrated through her thoughts, pulling her attention back to his steady gaze. His mercury eyes bore into her own and she was silenced by the quiet concern she found there.

"They usually this bad, kid?"

Another cramp snagged at her insides as a shocking, painful reminder. She whimpered softly and nodded her head in reply.

"This is--ah, different," she gasped, curling her hands into fists and digging them into her stomach. Riddick's face disappeared from her line of vision as her eyes fell shut.

"How's it different, Jack? Come on, talk to me."

She swallowed. "I don't--God, I don't know."

"I'm taking you to the hospital," she heard him say gruffly, and with a shrieking cry she flung her eyes open. "No! No, Ri--"

She gasped as white-hot pain burned through her insides. "--no hospitals, I--"

Riddick wasn't listening. Already he had her small body cradled in his large arms and in three, long strides he was out of her bedroom and heading down the hallway. "I know you don't like hospitals, Jack, but this ain't normal."

He was right. She didn't like hospitals. In fact, she damn right despised hospitals. She'd been forced to watch her father die in hospital. He had been one of the few people she'd actually cared about as a child. Though her mother had always treated him with a large degree of indifference, he had never abandoned her and instead had withstood her mother's cold misuse of him for the sake of his young, budding daughter.

Her frail, eight-year-old heart had broken the day her father had died. All she remembered was the sound of her mother's relieved sigh as the nurses unhooked the life support machine, and as she had wept angry, desolate tears, her mother had simply said, "done?" and turned to saunter down the corridor.

She'd been truly alone then.

Her aunt had been next. She'd died from the one disease that scientists across the planets had not been able to cure. Cancer had eaten away at her mother's sister, and this time her mother had wept when her aunt had taken her final breath. For one, brief second, her mother had been a vulnerable, young woman and that day, Jack had not only cried for the aunt she had barely known, but for the mother she had never had.

From then on she'd found herself in the hospital numerous times, the subject of many a beating, and by the age of eleven the doctors had learnt not to question her version of events.

But by the age of thirteen she had grown tired of broken bones and black eyes and with the money left to her by her father, she had fled and found herself on the Hunter Grazner.

Two years later she'd found herself in yet another hospital, staring down at the weathered corpse of the man she had considered a father.

It had been little over a year since Imam had died, but the pain was still fresh and his absence in her life was still felt as strongly as ever. The night Imam had died was the night Jack had confessed her dislike of hospitals to Riddick. From then on, they'd never been near one. Until now.

"Riddick, please," she begged with a whimper, clutching at his shirt and peering up at him with pain-glazed eyes.

"I'm sorry, kid," Riddick replied sincerely, stopping to grab her coat on the way out.

With a tortured mewl of pain, Jack gave in and collapsed against his chest.

---

Jack woke up to clean, pressed sheets and the smell of disinfectant. Panic bloomed in her chest. Casting wild eyes around the bland, white hospital room and finding Riddick no where in sight, she scrambled hastily from the bed and padded barefoot to the chair where her clothes sat in a neat pile.

She was just slipping on her shirt when she heard the door open. Riddick stepped through, with one large hand curled around a styrofoam cup and the other wrapped around the door handle.

"Get your ass back in that bed, kid," he rumbled, turning to close the door behind him.

Jack scowled and pulled her shirt over her torso. She sat down on the chair behind her so she could put on her sneakers, but Riddick's firm voice froze her movements.

"Now."

"I can't stay here, Riddick. You know I can't." She lifted her head, pleading with him silently to not make her stay here. She would be fine in a couple of days, she was sure, but she knew if she stayed here, something bad would happen. Bad things always happened in hospitals. This time bad things would happen to her.

I want to go home.

"I want to go home."

"Jack, you're sick. You need to stay here 'til the doctors can tell us what's wrong," Riddick said, sounding agitated but oddly concerned. It was endearing and Jack almost gave in right there.

"I'm not fuckin' sick," she argued, ignoring Riddick's pointed glare (he didn't like it when she cussed) and bending down to tie her laces. "I've got period pains, and unless that's suddenly a huge cause for concern, I'm not gonna be dyin' any time soon." Fully clothed, she rose from the chair and stood with her arms folded over her chest. "Now can we please go home."

He said nothing. Instead he took a steady gulp from the cup in his hand and stepped over to the arm chair that sat in the far corner of the hospital room. He settled himself down, picked up a magazine from the small table beside him and proceeded to leaf through it absently.

"Get in bed, kid," he repeated, eyes cast down, scanning the pages with feigned interest.

"Fuck you, Riddick," she countered angrily, suddenly tired of his patronising tone. She'd already accepted that he would never stop talking to her like a six-year-old, but right now she wasn't in the mood. She wanted out of here and damned if he was going to stop her.

She headed for the door and made it half way before something tightened around her belly. At first she thought it was Riddick's arm but when liquid fire spread through her insides, bringing her to her knees, there was no arm holding her up. Instead it was just her and the cool surface of the floor beneath her palms and then the side of her face.

Black dots were blotting out the harsh, blinding light of the hospital room and then, suddenly, her vision blurred into complete darkness as she was lifted from the hard floor. Her head spun wildly and sickness rose up into her throat. She blinked rapidly, slightly panicked because of the blackness that had suddenly stolen her vision.

She hadn't passed out. She wished she had because the pain was now an intense throbbing that pounded through her stomach like a fiery fist. It snagged at her stomach muscles and pulled her body into a tight ball.

She felt the weight of large arms around her, and then the cool softness of a pillow beneath her cheek. A hand came to rest against her heated forehead, sweeping up to brush her hair from her face. She heard soft murmurings but couldn't hear anything past the dull roaring in her ears and the sound of her own heavy breathing. She held her breath and caught the low hum of Riddick's voice.

"--ust hold in their kid. Doctor's on his w--"

Something's wrong, she wanted to say. Instead the only thing that escaped her was a sharp gasp. Her mind was a whirlwind of pain and darkness, but one thought ran rampant among the chaos.

Bad things are happening. Just like I said it would. Bad things are--

Suddenly the blackness melted from her vision and all she saw was white, blinding light. It burnt her eyes, it burnt like the fire in her belly, igniting her senses and sparking at her nerves until she was nothing more than a whimpering ball, trying to claw her way out of her own body. It cut short her breath and with another agonising gasp, there was blackness again. For one split second her body went cold, and then... nothing.